


You want a better story. Who Wouldn't?

by hasitsclaws



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Adult Content, Drabble, F/F, F/M, Incest, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Underage - Freeform, prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-05 07:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1810270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hasitsclaws/pseuds/hasitsclaws
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rec of various prompts from tumblr. Everything from "Hey, Kate, what's your favorite movie?" to "You look like Seth, but you're not Seth." to "Are you seriously making us watch Dirty Dancing? Seriously?" It's a good time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You are a box with fragile written on it, and so many people have not handled you with care.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. I've been given some various prompts on tumblr for little ficlets of my favorite characters over the past week, and decided to compile them on here just to have them more substantially jotted down somewhere. They're just little bits of fun I've been working on before finishing my more serious works, but I love them and all the beautiful people who gave me the prompts. So, yeah, fics a'plenty.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie/Kate - an extension of the conversation at the pool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from the amazingly wonderful seren-pen in which "Richie/Kate - an extension of the conversation at the pool, maybe she doesn’t leave quite so quickly.”

([original on tumblr](http://hasitsclaws.tumblr.com/post/88844757596/you-are-a-box-with-fragile-written-on-it-and-so-many))

* * *

 

Richie holds his hand out to her and Kate smiles, goes to shake it when suddenly one of the kids on the other side of the pool jumps in. The splash is so big it washes over her and Richie in drops, all thoughts of handshakes forgotten as they look at each other and laugh.

For once in a long time, Kate feels…content. Not  _better_ , exactly, but she doesn’t feel as bad as Richie described her as being— bleeding out, the grief inside of her so violent it feels like it’s oozing through her pores and making her steps heavier, weighing her down like a lead weight. When she was swimming she wondered if maybe that feeling would make it easier to drown. Now she’s glad she didn’t.

"Are you here alone, Richie?" Kate asks to continue the conversation, doesn’t want him to leave just yet.

A sort of look passes over Richie’s face, this kind of certainty and fear and admiration. “No,” he says. “I’m here with my brother, Seth.”

"My brother’s here too," Kate says. "His name is Scott."

"You get along with him?" Richie asks.

"Do you get along with your brother?" Kate counters.

Richie smiles, dashes his cigarette out onto the cement and straightens up a bit more in his seat after Kate’s done the same with her own. They’re both quiet for a moment, watching the mother play with her children.

Kate envies them. She remembers when her life was simple like that— when her parents loved her and her biggest concern was picking out the perfect dress for prom or passing her biology final.

Sometimes she wishes she were a child again and only had scraped knees instead of a broken heart.

"It sucks growing up too quick, huh?" Richie asks.

Kate blinks. “Do you read minds now, too?” she laughs.

Shaking his head, Richie swivels until his knees are level with the side of her thigh. Kate can feel the heat radiating off of his body in waves, stifling in the Texan sun. “It’s written all over your face,” he says, and she blushes. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, though. I had to grow up quick, too.”

"How come?" Kate asks, and when he hesitates she says, "Sometimes it’s easier to talk about it to a stranger."

"Touche," Richie smirks, sobers up after a moment and opens his mouth to speak before closing it again. "My old man, he wasn’t a good guy. He used to beat my brother, and I just…I couldn’t stand it, you know? Seth’s a year older than me, so he’s always felt like he has to protect me, and he always took the brunt of it. Until our dad died in a fire when we were young."

"I’m sorry for your loss," Kate says automatically, words spoken to her over and over just a few weeks ago at her mom’s funeral.

"I’m not," Richie says, and Kate doesn’t think he’s a bad person for feeling that way. Sometimes circumstance turns people emotionless because they’ve already felt too much. "He deserved what he got. I’m just regretful it happened because of how bad it messed up Seth. No matter how much our old man hurt him, Seth always just wanted to make him proud. I think it’s still kind of like that— he’s always trying to do things better, but he doesn’t apply himself the way he should."

"Maybe he’s afraid to fail," Kate says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Maybe it scares him."

"I think he’s really just afraid to be alone," Richie answers. "We’re all each other’s got, and I don’t know what he’d do if he lost me."

"Or what you’d do if you lost him?"

"Yeah," Richie says, watches as the mother gathers up her kids and starts shuffling back to their room. Kate follows the movements too, counting their steps until finally the door closes behind them. "That’s why I have to do this, Kate."

"Do what?" Kate asks him, and when she looks back over Richie has a gun pointed at her.

Every nerve in Kate’s body suddenly turns to ice. It’s still so hot out that the air is shimmering, but she can’t feel it through the abrupt fear in her veins. And for a moment, after the gravity of the situation has hit her, she’s angry. She’s angry that she has trusted this man enough to tell him of her pain, and to feel sympathy for damage that Richie has stored up inside of himself too. She’s angry that she thought this conversation meant something, when really it was probably nothing more than a distraction.

"I’m sorry, Kate," Richie says. "But Seth and me— we don’t have any other way of getting out."

"Shooting me is your way of getting out?" Kate whispers.

Richie shakes his head and motions for her to stand. Kate does, turns to grab her phone but Richie tells her to leave it and steps up against her back, the muzzle of the gun digging into her flesh. She’s still wet from the pool, water seeping into the starched lines of Richie’s Bible salesman suit as he moves the arm not steadying the gun up to her shoulder to turn her back around, so she’s facing him. The metal of the gun’s barrel slides over her side, making Kate shiver when it finally digs into the soft flesh of her stomach. She can feel Richie’s knuckles barely brushing too, and there’s a sort of electric pulse going through her from that and the hand on her shoulder, the way the nails of his attached fingers are scoring soft crescents into her bicep.

"I’m not going to shoot you," Richie whispers softly. "We need your family’s help to get us across the border."

"My family?" Kate asks, and her heart beats harder, so fast she can hear her blood rushing through her ears.

Richie nods. “Seth’s in your room with your dad and brother. They’re safe, as long as they listen to him.”

Kate swallows, her throat dry and saliva sticky, threatening to choke her. “Will you let us go after we get you there?” she asks, hating the way her voice breaks and how tears prick at the backs of her eyes. Her dad and Scott are all she has left— to know they’re in danger is more terrifying than the gun pressing up into the soft, vulnerable part of her belly, more terrifying than Richie’s tight grip on her shoulder and the way his face is just inches from her own.

"Yes," Richie says, but she doesn’t quite believe him. "Now come on, Seth’s waiting."

"You don’t have to do this," Kate says as he angles them so it looks like he simply has his hand on the small of her back and isn’t holding her at gun-point while they start walking back towards the room.

"She didn’t get migraines," Richie counters instead of actually answering Kate at full-value.

Kate stops at the pool gate, doesn’t move even when the gun scratches into her spine from the motion. “What?” she asks.

"Whoever you’re so upset about, she didn’t get migraines," Richie says, his voice like gravel.

Kate can’t gauge what he’s playing at behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “Are you a demon?” she asks, because surely all of this must be some kind of test.

Something comes over Richie’s expression then, something dark and haunting and violent. “No,” he says. “I’m not going to hurt you, Kate. Now  _move_.”

Kate closes her eyes and breathes out harshly through her nose, takes automatic steps forwards. They’re just a few yards from the motel room when she looks back up at Richie and says, “How is this going to save you and Seth from losing each other?”

Richie shakes his head. “There’s a deal we made. We’re professional thieves, see. We pulled off our last heist today, and we’re making a deal with the money. Thirty million— well, twenty-six, now…” He doesn’t elaborate on that, just stops at the lip of the motel room door and turns to her, holding her gaze. “In Mexico, there’s a safe place for us. Somewhere we’re meant to be. I think you’re meant to be there, too.”

"No," Kate says. " _No_.”

"Kate—" Richie starts, but suddenly the door’s ripped open and a man dressed like Richie pulls them through.

"What _took so long_?” he hisses at Richie, and Kate looks over at the bed where her father and Scott are sitting, eyes wide and frightened. She goes to take a step towards them, but Richie grabs her shoulder.

The other man, who Kate guesses must be his brother, must be  _Seth_ , hits Richie’s hand away from her. “I told you not to fucking  _touch_  her, Richard.”

"Stop treating me like I’m an idiot!" Richie snaps. "I got her up here, didn’t I?"

Kate can see then just how broken the brothers are, and understands what Richie meant. She wonders what it says about her that she still has sympathy for them. Maybe it’s because she can see that they’re just a pair of lost little boys underneath their tough exterior. Her momma always said people do their best with what they’re given, and from what Richie said, he and his brother weren’t given much.

"Did he hurt you, Kate?" her father asks then, and she’s never seen him more afraid or mad before in her life as she stares at the way his body is shaking, on high alert.

“ _No_ ,” Richie says. “I wouldn’t— I wouldn’t do that.”

Kate looks back to him, sees the sincerity there and wants to believe him so badly, but then she remembers that violent look in his eyes outside, the gun still there in his hand that was just pressed into her. The marks from his nails linger on her shoulder and are going to bruise— Richie might not want to hurt her, but he’s going to sooner or later.

And he must read that on her face too, because he looks kind of sad, suddenly, like he wants to apologize, like he wants to take the blood that’s seeped out of her and press it back into her body, bandage her up tight and Kate doesn’t understand.

Seth eyes the gaze between them then, breaks it with a low whistle. Kate’s stare skitters over to the man and the slow, sarcastic smile curving at his sharp-bowed mouth. “Okay, well, now that we’re done with whatever this is— time to go change, Princess. You got five minutes.”

Kate nods, does as told because she doesn’t want to cause trouble for her family and goes over to the bathroom door, Seth following after to, “Make sure you don’t pull anything, princess.”

She steps onto the cold tiles still dripping wet, looks back up at her family’s scared faces, and then over to Richie one last time. There’s something there in his expression, something like hope, like a question.

She shuts the door in answer.

 

 


	2. And you will be free.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie/Kate - What's your favorite movie?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from the fabulous seren-pen: Richie/Kate - what’s your favorite movie? Inspired slightly by a piece of fanart by theheartofgold on tumblr bc the art is amazing and headcanons accepted. Also inspired by seren-p’s beautiful beautiful work "got to be love or death" with the fantastic four living together human and happy.

([original on tumblr](http://hasitsclaws.tumblr.com/post/88916560516/and-you-will-be-free))

* * *

 

 

"What’s your favorite movie?"

Kate looks up from where she’s painting her toe-nails cotton candy pink against the stained carpeting and shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “What’s yours?”

Richie gives her this _look_ , one that reminds her of Seth when his patience is wearing thin, but Richie makes the expression so much more menacing. He’s been human again for just shy of a year, and he and Scott are adjusting as well as can be expected. Kate and Seth both know that their brothers sometimes miss it— the rush of blood and venom. They know that Richie misses Santanico, and that Scott misses being stronger than the bullies.

But they’re all kind of happy, when it boils down to it.

Seth and Richie are still wanted in the U.S., so they’ve made a homestead just outside of La Manzanilla on the beach where there’s plenty of blue agave to go around. Their place is a small, reconstructed space that leaks during storms, but Kate likes it. There’s three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room and a kitchen. It used to be a resort house for tourists, but the old caretaker rents it to them by the month.

Kate works short shifts as a nurse’s aid at the local women’s clinic, Scott does yard work for the neighbors, Richie writes mystery novels, and Seth does construction. It’s more foundation than any one of them are used to after five years of constant fighting, of chasing each other all over the world trying to kill each other before finally teaming up and killing the infamous Nine instead. That lead to the end of Santanico, but she was ready to go, finally free. It cured Richie and Scott, but they were ready to come home— which is this small place with Seth and Kate since the four of them are all each other has left.

They play old records at dawn and eat lunch in the sand and Kate and Seth kiss all the time while Scott and Richie throw homemade French fries at them, saying they’re going to make the gulls attack.

It isn’t perfect, and Kate knows better than most that they’re all wishing for some action, wishing for some blood, but for now, this is enough.

So she says, “I guess my favorite movie is Labyrinth,” and laughs when Richie’s eyebrows raise into his hairline.

They’re alone right now, Kate on the living room floor and Richie lounging against the beat-up couch that came with the place. Seth and Scott are in town getting dinner because no one felt like cooking tonight. There’s a comfortable stillness in the house without them. After all, Scott and Seth are the hyped up ones of their little foursome— Kate and Richie are their balance, the calm souls who always even things out when they get too tense.

The two of them have always had a connection through that, and through the pain they keep bundled up inside— Kate’s felt it since the moment Richie approached her at the side of that cheap motel pool all those years ago, and it’s never gone away. Even when he wasn’t alive anymore, even when she’d been ready to drive a stake through his heart, she felt it. Somehow, over the years, it’s just gotten stronger and stronger.

"Don’t tell me you’re a Bowie fangirl," Richie says, but he’s smiling.

Kate shrugs again, caps her bottle of nail polish and puts it on the coffee table before wriggling her toes to dry them. “Not really,” she says. “But I still like Labyrinth.”

"Why?" Richie asks. "Does it remind you of the babe?"

Laughing, Kate props up against the edge of the couch and settles back comfortably as Richie’s heel nudges her shoulder, material of his socks soft and sandy since they’re constantly tracking the beach with them onto their house’s floorboards. “I saw it when I was real little,” Kate shrugs. “Then I used to call it  _Lab-by-rinth_  because that’s how it read to me. I just…I like the story. I like the colors and the costumes and the make believe.”

"There’s more to it than that," Richie lilts, sits up and swoops his long legs over either side of her so he can lean down and set his head on top of hers in a familiar, warm gesture. "Spill, Katie-Cakes."

Kate smiles fondly, the nickname not hurting anymore. She stopped thinking about her dad’s final breath a long time ago and replaced it with good things, like his laugh or how great he was at giving bear hugs. There are times where she still wakes up screaming from nightmares, sees his eyes all yellow and dead in the darkness, but Seth’s always there to press a warm hand into her shoulder and hold her softly in bed, tell her that it’s okay, that he’s got her and she’s safe here at home with him and their brothers.

"I like that Sarah takes the power back," Kate says.

"Of course you would,  _Buffy_ ,” Richie answers, the nickname having caught on from Seth since Richie and Scott came to stay with them.

"Shut up," Kate says, batting Richie away playfully.

The man retaliates by grabbing Kate up under her arms and pulling her onto the couch, both of them wrestling together until they end up in a tangled mess, breath rushing out and bodies shaking with laughter. When they stop Kate realizes she’s on top of Richie, hips settled in the cradle of his pelvis. His body is more firm than Seth’s, who’s softened over the years with age. Richie’s still about the same as Kate remembers him being before the Twister. Even though they only spent a grand total of twelve hours together before he sprouted fangs, the boy of then and now has been burned into her memory since first sight. Long and lean and a little cold, the complete opposite of his brother who Kate’s shared a bed with every night for three years, since they finally stopped dancing around what they were and accepted what they’ve become.

Kate’s throat suddenly feels dry as she holds Richie’s gaze through his glasses, blue-blue eyes and an openness he doesn’t have with anyone else besides her and Seth, not even with Scott, not all the way. Softly, Kate reaches up and traces the curve of Richie’s jaw, fingertip lingering on his mouth which parts slightly at the touch.

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl whose stepmother always made her stay home with the baby. And the baby was a spoiled child, and wanted everything for himself, and the young girl was practically a slave. But what no one knew is that the king of the goblins had fallen in love with the girl, and he had given her certain powers—" Kate starts, but is interrupted by Richie’s soft rumble of laughter, body bouncing slowly under hers and filling her with butterflies as he reaches around to press his hands into the small of her back and keep her in place.

"You remembered the soliloquy, really?" he asks, lips moving against her finger in smooth lines. Despite the sarcasm in his voice, he looks almost as if he’s proud of her for being able to quote the film verbatim, so Kate continues.

"So one night," she says, tapping Richie’s teeth in warning when he starts to laugh again, "when the baby had been particularly cruel to her, she called on the goblins for help. ‘Say your right words,’ the goblins said, ‘and we’ll take the baby to the Goblin City. And you will be free.’ But the girl knew that the king would keep the baby in his castle for ever and ever and ever, and turn it into a goblin. And so the girl suffered in silence. Until one day, when she was tired from a day of housework, and she was hurt by the harsh words of her stepmother, and she could no longer stand it… "

"And then what?" Richie asks, his eyes big as saucers and Kate realizes he isn’t just doing it for affect— he has this  _thing_  with her, like he’s eagerly hanging on every word she says. Like he’s looking at the dawn. He was like that with Santanico too, but in a different way.

Richie later admitted, way down the line after becoming human again and he could finally go out in the sun without getting so sick he was bed-ridden for three days straight, that Santanico never actually showed him the truth like he’d first thought she did. Not the clear truth, anyways. She showed him different versions of life in varying shades of light, skimming over the bad, or maybe relying on it too much.

"You, though," Richie said to Kate when Seth’s back was turned. "You’ve never tried to keep out the gorey bits. Not since I saw you bleeding in that pool. With you it’s always been different, Kate. Seth tries to protect me from the world. Santanico tried to make me rule it. With you, you just make me  _live_.”

"And then," Kate says, takes her hand away from Richie’s face and curls her arms under herself so she can prop up on his chest and look at him, his hands sliding up her back and over the softness over her sides, along the flesh around her ribs until he’s cupping the sharp bones of her shoulder blades. "Then, the girl says ‘I can bear it no longer! Goblin King! Goblin King! Wherever you may be, take this child of mine far away from me!’ And the Goblin King does, and the girl realizes very suddenly that she would like her brother back. So she goes to the Goblin King’s realm and walks through the labyrinth there, fighting for her brother until she comes face to face with the Goblin King…"

Kate pauses, sees the light in Richie’s eyes and realizes how much the story rings home for the both of them. They’ve been battling for their brothers, for  _each other_  since day one. They’ve been through countless labyrinths of their own, offered so much and turned it all down because the love they have for their family is more than any kind of riches or power or immortality— blood is thicker than even the most decadent wine.

"The girl tells him, ‘Give me the child,’" Kate whispers, breath hitching as Richie shifts suddenly beneath of her, his body pressing up into hers like he’s trying to cross the invisible lines that years of hurt and comfort and more hurt have put between them.

"Beware," Richie says softly, and Kate’s brows pull together, lip going between her teeth as he coos, "I have been generous, up until now."

"You—" Kate starts with a smile, but Richie just returns the grin, making her pause.

And then his expression turns sharp and he says, “But I can be cruel.”

Kate blinks, fingers tapping rhythm against Richie’s chest. “Generous? What have you done that’s generous?” she asks, but instead of disbelieving as Sarah’s tone had been in the film, Kate’s voice is breathy, her entire body on high alert like it always is in the presence of the dangerous Gecko brothers, monster kings in their own right.

“ _Everything_ ,” Richie says, one of his hands abandoning her shoulder to push some hair out of her face before she can after it falls forwards, knows her nervous gestures better than she does. “Everything that you wanted, I have done. You asked that the child be taken— I took him. You cowered before me— I was frightening. I have reordered time, I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you. I am exhausted from living up to your expectations of me. Isn’t that generous?”

Kate swallows, voice sticking to the inside of her throat as she murmurs, “Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered… I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the goblin city… For my will is as strong as yours… and my kin—”

“ _Stop_!” Richie says, throwing up his hand from the side of her face and jostling them so they both laugh and have to balance each other out before he continues. “Wait. Look, look what I’m offering.” He cups his palm around an imaginary crystal ball and moves it in front of Kate’s eyes, and inside of that fake world she sees it, sees everything that could have happened if the Geckos hadn’t grown up bad men and she’d met them somewhere different, somewhere outside the labyrinth of that bar. “Your dreams!”

"And my kingdom is great," Kate pushes on, watching as Richie’s face falls slightly, something hot and stinging suddenly burning at the back of Kate’s eyelids.

"I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want," Richie says.

Kate shakes her head, smiling through the tears she didn’t even realize she’s been shedding. “Kingdom as great…damn… I can never remember that line.”

"Just fear me— love me— do as I say, and I will be your slave," Richie says softly.

But the thing is, they have been slaves for much longer than before now. Santanico had been so obsessed with setting herself free that she hadn’t realized she was damning people the way she’d been damned herself. She’d said that it was a cruel thing to turn an innocent little girl into a monster, but that’s what she did to Kate. She said that she wanted to cut the chains that bind, but she turned Richie into the undead and blinded him with love so he would do as she said. She said she wanted to take it all back, but what she took wasn’t her chance at freedom, but innocent people’s lives like Kate’s and Richie’s and Seth’s and Scott’s. She’d meant well, but Goblins are always monsters in the end.

"My kingdom is great…" Kate says, swallowing down her fear. "My kingdom is great…"

Suddenly the front door opens from the kitchen, swinging back on its creaky latches.

"Okay! We got burgers  _and_  tacos  _and_  pie  _and_  ice-cream because we didn’t know what you two dorks would want!” Seth calls out, the sound of his car keys hitting the table and Scott shuffling in behind him. “And Richie, I got you some horchata so you better be grate— whoa, am I interrupting somethin’ here?”

Both Kate and Richie started scrabbling to get away from one another the moment the door opened, yet Seth’s managed to catch them in the middle of it, their limbs tied together as they sit up on the couch, looking sheepish. But Seth’s just smiling when he looks at them, laughs and throws some take-out bags on the coffee table as Scott hops into his favorite arm-chair and turns on the television to an old western before abruptly flipping the channel to cartoons.

"We were just talking about our favorite movies," Richie grins, composure much more calm than Kate’s— she’s steadily trying to wipe the tear-tracks off her face without being noticed.

Seth nods, bites into a Hawaiian burger and then glances up at Kate, knows the signs that she’s distressed even without it being apparent. “You okay, princess?” he asks, tone soft and full of love and Kate feels her stomach sink in.

"I just need a moment," Kate says, smiles falsely and heads out on the trail Seth and Scott just came in from, but not before she hears her brother saying, "Don’t tell me she gave you the Labyrinth speech, Richie! She used to say it over and over as a kid and always cried!"

"Labyrinth, really?" Seth chuckles, eyes following his wife as she slips out the door. "Wasn’t that one of your favorites as a kid, Richie?"

Kate lets the door shut behind her and stumbles down their small excuse of a back porch onto the sand, walking out into the crisp evening air of the beach, wind whipping at her hair. She stands just at the edge of the shore for a moment, wondering why quoting some dumb Bowie movie to Richie on the couch felt so completely momentous, brought up so many stupid memories of the past.

Maybe it’s because most nights Kate tells herself that she’s over all of the hell that they’ve been through, that she’s  _fine_. But much like Santanico, that thirst for revenge has never gone away from her, lingering violent and hungry just beneath her heart. Maybe it’s because most nights she sees the way that Richie and Seth and Scott are still broken inside and she can’t fix them because she’s still broken herself.

Tragedy has a way of never really leaving people— it disappears for indefinite amounts of time and makes you think that you’re alright, that you can go on. And then it rushes back like a tidal wave, like your entire life and everything in it is just a ship flippin’ over in the ocean. It’s people like Kate and Richie and Seth and Scott that are dangerous because they are damaged, because they know that they can survive, but take away that survival and what else is there?

"There’s love."

Kate glances over her shoulder, watches Richie take slow steps up until he’s standing beside her, body radiating warmth. Even though Santanico’s gone and he’s human now, Richie still sees things sometimes, still knows what people are thinking without the words ever actually being said. Especially with Kate— she’s like an open book to him, hurt bleeding out all around her.

"There’s Seth and Scott and me," Richie says, holding Kate’s gaze meaningfully. "You just have to say it, Kate. Say it and remember and know it’s true."

Kate blinks up at him, watches the way the moonlight curves on his face and reaches for his mouth, curving her fingertip along his lower lip. “You have no power over me.”

Richie grins and kisses her fingertip before looping his arm over her shoulders. “Come on, Goblin Queen,” he says. “I’ll let you have some of my horchata.”

Kate laughs and follows him to the house.

"You never did tell me what your favorite movie is," she says before opening the front door, sounds of Scott and Seth hollering at the television inside, the warmth of their home enveloping.

"I’ll give you a hint on this, the day of my daughter’s wedding," Richie smirks as they walk into the living room.

“ _Seriously_?” Kate snickers as she sits on the couch and Seth’s arm replaces his brother’s, a new kind of warmth but no less comforting. Richie sits on the floor where Kate was sitting before the whole conversation started, jostling her bottle of nail polish when his feet stretch out and hit the coffee table. “The Godfather? How cliche can you be?”

"Hey!" Seth says, body bowing towards Kate’s indignantly and Richie grins up at her because it’s two against one now. "Don’t knock a classic."

"E _ug_ ,” Kate scoffs. “Scott, help me out here!”

"No way," Scott says, half of an onion ring falling out his mouth. "In my opinion you’re  _all_  wrong. Ghostbusters is definitely the greatest film ever.”

“ _What_?” Seth asks. “Are you  _insane_  man?”

"Two words," Scott says. "Bill. Murray."

"The man  _is_  a comedy genius,” Richie shrugs.

"Shut up, Richard," Seth snaps.

"But he’s right!" Scott shouts.

Both Scott and Seth then begin arguing about Murray verses Costello, the house filling up with chatter and excitement and love. Kate glances over at Richie and sees him smiling up at her, and she smiles back, thinking that her kingdom is truly great, and maybe one day, the past will finally have no power over her anymore.

 

 


	3. There has to be some kind of collateral.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seth/Kate - never have I ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt of seth and kate play never have i ever, requested by anonymous.

([original on tumblr](http://hasitsclaws.tumblr.com/post/89014510811/there-has-to-be-some-kind-of-collateral))

* * *

 

 

Kate’s trying very hard not to giggle as Seth curses and strips off his jacket, face pinched in annoyance. She stares at the bare skin of his arms, the thick lines of his tattoo peeking out from under his t-shirt, and grins. Playing Never Have I Ever with a grown man is way more fun than playing it with your girlfriends at high school sleepovers.

They’ve been on the run together for six months, three weeks, two days and, at last count, seven hours. They’ve grieved together and bled together and hunted together and have even cried together, though Seth doesn’t like to talk about those moments. It feels like it’s been ages since Kate’s had anything else but her and him battling monsters, knows the back of his hand better than her own.

At least, in the bodily sense.

There’s an unspoken connection between her and Seth, either having been there since the start or developing out of tragedy. She knows every move he’s going to make, and it’s the same for him with her. Seth likes to talk and talk and talk, and Kate likes to listen. But, thing is, Seth never talks about himself. He always talks about  _Richie_. Growing up with Richie, pulling off heists with Richie, the pranks he and Richie used to pull on their crazy Uncle Eddie as kids.

And Kate’s always been okay that Seth doesn’t like to say anything directly about himself— she hasn’t ever been the first to volunteer up personal information, either. Working together to bring down the monsters that took their families away from them has always been enough that they don’t need to know each other’s favorite movie or whether or not they’ve seen the world’s biggest beer can, or whatever.

At least it’s always been enough until tonight.

Kate blames this sudden urge she has to know every little detail about Seth on the culebras— she blames everything on culebras, so that line of thinking seems rational.

They went on a hunt earlier, slaughtered a nest that had taken root in a small town near the coast and was picking off the locals one-by-one. In celebration of their victory, the town threw Kate and Seth a fiesta, treating like heroes instead of common thieves and killers. There was music and dancing and lots of tequila, a nice old woman named Rosa offering Kate and Seth the spare room in her house for the night since they’re too drunk to drive to their motel twenty miles back.

Seth helped Kate stumble into the small room and thanked Rosa as she handed them extra blankets before closing the door behind her as she left. There’s only one bed, everyone having assumed Kate and Seth are  _together_ , but it didn’t deter either one of them as they slumped onto the mattress exhaustively, leaning into each other.

Kate pressed her face into Seth’s chest, head spinning from too much alcohol and dancing and culebra blood. Seth hummed softly, holding her around the shoulders. This kind of gesture isn’t uncommon with them— words of comfort don’t come easy to Seth, so what he lacks in vocabulary he makes up for in physical touch.

He’s always doing that with Kate, really—  _touching_. It’s like his hands are a part of her body by now, always lingering and warm and  _safe_.

The thought made Kate sad suddenly, the fact that this is all they have anymore, this broken semblance of life. She bit her lip to keep from crying and being the teary-eyed drunk from a bad romantic comedy; inhaled sharply to hold back a sob and caught Seth’s familiar scent— oil and sweat and old paper cuts.

She thought about how they could’ve died tonight, how they could die any night really now that they’re living in a world of monsters and things not so make-believe. They could just up and be gone in an instant, and she’ll never even know if Seth did or didn’t graduate high school.

And that’s when she said, “I want to play a game.”

"What kind of game, princess?" Seth asked, raising his brow at her smugly.

She shrugged. “Like twenty questions or something.”

“ _Lame_ ,” Seth laughed, kissing her nose when she scowled at him; it made Kate’s cheeks burn. “If we’re going to play a questions kind of game, there has to be some kind of collateral.”

Kate is just drunk enough that Seth’s idea sounded interesting; Seth is just drunk enough that he kept digging them a deeper grave by adding on, “Let’s play never have I ever, and every time we’ve done something the other hasn’t, we strip.”

"Like strip poker?" Kate asked, squinting up at him.

"Without the cards," Seth laughed, moving to the floor and having Kate sit across from him so they’re on equal playing grounds.

And now here they are, Seth without the sweat jacket he got from one of the neighborhood men who lent it to him along with a t-shirt, some sweats and a pair of socks so that Seth’s dirty hunting clothes can be washed before the culebra blood sets into the fabric and never comes out again (Kate’s lost many a good tank top to that problem).

Kate’s sitting there in a dress Rosa’s neighbor lent her, and that’s all she’s got on besides her bra and underwear. Knowing that Seth’s got all that on her is daunting, and she’s just glad he left his shoes at the door, mad she left her own there too. It’s the reason she came straight out the ring playing hardball.

"I’ve never robbed a bank," she smirked, and off came the sweat jacket.

"I’ve never made out in a church," Seth retaliates.

Kate’s nose scrunches. She goes to remove her mother’s cross from around her neck, tucking it neatly atop the nightstand.

"That’s  _ch_ a- _eat_ -i _ng_ ,” Seth accuses, mouth puckering in a pout. _  
_

"I’ve never worn a suit," Kate sing-songs, and he rolls his eyes before taking off one of his socks.

"I’ve never worn a dress," Seth smirks.

Kate blinks, head too fuzzy from tequila shots that for a moment she thinks he’s smirking just because he’s won this round. But then Kate looks down at herself and suddenly she’s a little more sober as her hands start shaking and she lifts her borrowed dress over her head.

Seth’s seen her practically naked before, of course. They share a motel room every night, so it’s only natural. But even then, it’s always been an accident. Now it’s anything but, Seth’s eyes following the hem of Kate’s dress as it rises slowly before she throws it into a silky pink pool on the floor.

Kate pushes a strand of hair behind her ear nervously, watches the way Seth’s throat bobs as he stares at the newly developing curves of her waist, the soft roundness of her stomach and slopes of her breasts spilling over the top of her bra.

"I’ve never graduated high school," she says, only a little bitter. She’s more interested to know Seth’s answer, that little detail she wants to have when she finally kicks the bucket some day.

"Does a G.E.D. count?" Seth asks.

Kate smiles and shakes her head; Seth frowns and takes off his other sock.

"I’ve never left the country before Mexico," Seth says.

"Me neither," Kate says, sees something like a mixture of relief and disappointment well up in Seth’s face. "I’ve never been married."

Seth curses again, says he knew Kate would use Vanessa against him someday as he takes his t-shirt off. Kate grimaces— it isn’t like she’s mad at Seth for having been married or whatever; she understands, actually. Vanessa never sounded like a bad lady from the way Seth described her. Kate just kind of doesn’t like the topic because she hates herself for being  _jealous_  of Vanessa— not just that she got to be with Seth intimately as most would guess, but that she got to be with him at all, way before this whole culebra mess started. _  
_

A lot of the time Kate wishes she’d known Seth in a different stage of their lives, before they had to be killers in order to survive.

"I’ve never kissed my brother," Seth says, jealousy of his own apparent; Kate pulls up short at that. She’s so busy lingering on his expression that she forgets for a moment that she has to strip, and then when she does realize, her entire body goes hot.

Slowly, she reaches behind her back and undoes the clasps of her bra, letting the garment shrug down her shoulders slowly.

"Kate," Seth says just before she takes the scrap of coverage off all the way. "Wait. This was stupid.  _I’m_ stupid. You don’t gotta—”

Kate tosses her bra over with her dress and looks back up at him, putting on the brave face she does when they hunt. Seth’s expression is one of pure shock, slowly turning to one of pure  _want_.

"I’ve never had anyone see me like this," Kate whispers softly.

"Naked?" Seth asks for verification.

 _No_ , Kate wants to say.  _Vulnerable._  But instead she just nods her head and watches as Seth sits up, pulls his sweatpants low down on his hips. Kate expects to see the peek of his boxers, heat pooling quick and sharp down in her stomach when she realizes that Seth must have decided to have those washed too as the sweats curve down over top his thighs and she sees he’s wearing nothing underneath, arousal obvious.

“ _Oh_ ,” Kate says breathlessly, just looking at him as he sets the sweats next to the pile of the rest of their clothes.

Seth licks his lips,keeps his eyes on hers as he says, “I’ve never not wanted to kiss you.”

Kate doesn’t take her underwear off. “Sometimes you annoy me,” she says, and when he laughs all of the anxiety in her body drains away, replaced with a sudden want to not only know Seth before she dies, but know what he  _feels_  like too.

"You win," Seth says,fingers twitching at his sides.

"What’s my prize?" Kate asks.

He opens his mouth to answer, closes it; he looks down at her body again, eyes lingering before he glances back up and says, “Anything you want, princess.”

Kate takes a deep breath, is thankful she’s drunk enough to have the courage to say, “I want you to kiss me.”

"I think I can swing that," Seth says, surging forwards to press his mouth against her own.

 

 


	4. Imagine a story of not good against evil, but need against need.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seth/Kate - Seth teaches Kate how to case a bank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt of Seth/Kate - he teaches her how to case a bank from seren-pen.

([original on tumblr](http://hasitsclaws.tumblr.com/post/89184004061/imagine-a-story-of-not-good-against-evil-but-need))

* * *

 

 

Kate frowns at her reflection in the mirror of the motel room’s small bathroom, trying to pull her too-short skirt farther down on her legs. She feels stupid, dressed in five-inch heels and a low-cut, cherry red baby doll dress, doesn’t know how this is ever going to work when she can’t even  _breathe_  because the stupid thing is so tight. 

When she envisioned casing her first bank, she definitely didn’t picture herself dressing up like an extra off the set of Pretty Woman.

She voices this complaint to Seth while adjusting her lipstick with a frown.

"That’s the whole point, princess," Seth calls from where he’s sitting on the edge of his bed, lacing up his Derbies. "Makes for a better distraction."

Kate rolls her eyes, exiting the bathroom fixing the hem of her dress again. “I still feel like a cheap hooker,” she says to him.

Seth glances up, seeing her whole ensemble put together for the first time. Kate watches as his eyes darken before he smirks at her. “Well you  _look_  like a hooker that could charge two-thousand a night, if you ask me.”

"Thanks," Kate says dryly as she comes over to sit on the foot of her own bed. "You don’t look so bad yourself."

Seth chuckles, smooths out the jacket of his suit. It looks vaguely like the one he was wearing when she first met him, the one he burned right along with Kate’s own clothes after they left the Twister together and they didn’t want anything left to remind them of that place and everything they had experienced there.

That is, until they started hunting culebras about eight months ago; Kate still wishes that she hadn’t let him burn her favorite boots for nothing. Or even that they’d kept the car they’d stolen instead of Seth trading it out for a used 1969 Camaro and some extra cash; sometimes Kate misses the wind on her face when they’re driving.

"Here," Seth says, fishing around in his pockets until he pulls out a little black box. He flicks it open and inside Kate can see a diamond ring sparkling. "To complete the illusion."

"Is that real?" she asks, gaping.

"Naw," Seth says, takes the ring out of its perch and grabs her left hand from her lap, slipping the piece of jewelry onto her ring finger. "Cubic zirconium."

"Did you steal it?" Kate asks, admiring the way it sparkles in the early morning sun. It’s a bit gaudy for her taste, but right for the job.

"Maybe," Seth grins.

Kate snorts, glances at the fake golden band on Seth’s own ring finger. She bites her lip and tucks a strand of curled hair behind her ear, legs bouncing. She’s still antsy about this whole things, has no idea why she even agreed to it.

She and Seth have been together for a little over a year now. At first they just traveled aimlessly around Mexico living off the cash they got from the car deal, until one day neither one of them could stand the feeling of being without a purpose any longer. Kate’s not really sure how that led to them to start hunting culebras for a living, but now she doesn’t really know anything else. Sometimes she wonders what she would’ve done had she just stayed in the RV and never asked Seth if he wanted some company; most of the time she’s just glad that told her he did.

The thing about their adopted lifestyle though is that it isn’t cheap. Motel rooms and weapons cost money, and a person’s got to eat. They ran out of the cash they made off the seven months in, and living off of Seth hustling pool and pick-pocketing unsuspecting tourists has only been able to sustain them for so long. Meaning it hadn’t been that surprising when Seth had turned to her last week and said they should rob a bank.

Kate had said no at first, of course. She’d rather risk getting bitten by a culebra any day than being caught by the cops, especially with Richie and Santanico looking for them. Maybe if Seth would’ve suggested turning to major crime to fund their excursions two months ago before Freddie called and said he’d heard from an inside source that Santanico and Richie are back in Mexico, looking for Seth’s help to kill the Nine Lords, Kate wouldn’t have been so hesitant about agreeing to the job. But now they need to keep a low profile more than ever, and robbing a bank is definitely  _not_  keeping a low profile.

But somehow, like always, Seth had finally convinced her to say yes. Kate hates that he’s got the puppy-dog look down pat, and hates that she falls for it every, single time even more. She’s done a lot of stupid things after teaming up with Seth, but this is probably the stupidest of them all. They’re pretending like they’re  _newlyweds_  in order to case the place for Pete’s sake— with the way they argue like cats and dogs nearly every other minute, Kate has no idea how they’re going to make this look convincing.

"Don’t be so nervous," Seth says, reading the apprehension all over her face. He loops a tie around his neck and begins trying to knot it, the first try crooked so he starts again. "I’ve prepared you well for this."

"If you call looking at some blue-prints and telling me to watch for security cameras intense preparation, sure, Obi-Wan Kenobi, I’m all set," Kate scoffs, leans forwards when Seth’s fingers falter on the knot and bats his hands away. "Here. I used to do this for Scott before church all the time."

"Regular Suzy Homemaker, you are," Seth says as she ties a Windsor knot perfectly for him, smiling down at her.

Kate sticks her tongue out at him and smooths the tie’s tail out, hand lingering on Seth’s chest. “You really think I can do this?” she asks. “I don’t know the first thing about robbing a bank, Seth.”

"Hey," he says, reaches out and touches her face softly. Kate’s noticed over the months that Seth’s bad at comforting with words— he talks a lot, sure, but it’s mainly to settle himself more than anything. With her he’s always touching for reassurance, hugs her close after every hunt they go on and says he’s glad she’s okay, making Kate’s chest bloom with warmth. "You’re gonna do just fine, Kate. Hear me?"

"Yes," Kate says, bites her lip when he moves away from her and grabs the car keys off the nightstand. "But I still hate this stupid dress."

* * *

The bank they’re casing is small.

Seth didn’t want to do anything too big for Kate’s first job, so he picked a little local outlet in Cuajimalpa just outside of Mexico City. The plan for today is to go in acting like they’re newlyweds who just moved here from Houston and want to open up a restaurant at the edge of town, need to find a good bank to keep their funding in.

Seth parks the car across the street and Kate looks up at  _Banco Garcia_  from behind the wide rim of her sunglasses, lowering the accessory off of her face and putting it into the console shakily. She knows from the blueprints Seth showed her last night that the bank is less than three-thousand square feet, with its strongroom in the back past the employee lounge. There’s two meeting offices and a receptionist desk, five teller windows at the clerk counter. A guard is stationed at the door, and there are two security cameras— one behind the clerk counter, and another just outside of the vault.

Kate gets out of the car after Seth does, his arm automatically looping around her waist to put on the newlyweds persona. She glances up at him and sees his face is neutral, tries to do the same with her own but it just makes her hiccup nervously.

Seth looks down at her, stopping outside the front doors of the bank. “You’re fine, Kate,” he says. “Just do what we rehearsed, and everything will be perfect.”

"I don’t want to hurt anyone, Seth," she says, her main concern about this whole job, because she understands that when they actually do rob this place, she might have to hurt someone. She knows how to use a gun, sure, but using it on a culebra is way different than using it on a living, breathing human being. At least culebras want to kill her— the tellers and civilians in this bank have never paid her that discourtesy.

"I’ll take care of all of that," Seth says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear reassuringly. "I know you can do this, Kate."

Kate nods, his confidence in her making her want to at least  _try_. She closes her eyes and sucks in a deep breath before reaching to open the door, both her and Seth walking into the coolness of the bank and out of the hot Mexican sun. Her vision adjusts to the lower light and she looks around at the business of the place, ten customers in the queue for the tellers’ windows. When she glances to her left she sees the security guard, gun holstered on his hips as he looks forwards dutifully after watching Seth and Kate enter the building.

The secretary’s desk is in the middle of the bank, and Seth walks them over to it confidently, Kate’s heels clicking on the tile flooring as she leans into him slightly for support. The secretary herself is a plump, middle-aged woman that looks up at them from behind horn-rimmed glasses. Kate can see from the plaque on her desk that her name is Aurora.

“ _Hola_ ,” Aurora says cheerfully. “ _En qué puedo ayudarle_?”

Seth smiles at her. “Do you happen to speak English?” he asks.

"Why of course!" Aurora beams back. "It’s a necessity with all the  _lovely_  tourists such as yourself fluctuating in here from the city!” Kate can tell the woman’s already hooked into the whole ruse by Seth’s inhumanly long eyelashes and easy-speaking mouth and knows now why he got away with casing so many banks before this one.

The Gecko brothers might both be hot-headed idiots most of the time, but Kate’s never denied herself the simple truth that they’re very, very pretty to look at and that leaves them with a certain charm and power in their own right.

"Oh, we’re not tourists, ma’am," Seth says. "My wife and I here—" he jostles Kate for emphasis and she smiles at Aurora sweetly— "just moved in from Houston and are looking to start up a restaurant in the area."

“ _No me diga_ — you don’t say!” Aurora says, and Kate can tell the woman’s interest has peeked all the further. “What kind of restaurant?”

"Italian," Kate says, setting her hand on Seth’s chest intimately. "My husband here comes from a big Italian family on his mother’s side, and we thought it would be wonderful to be able to introduce some old family recipes here to Cuajimalpa."

"That sounds wonderful," Aurora says. "What are you going to call it?"

"Benito’s, after my recently passed brother," Seth says, and Kate knows that he isn’t totally faking the grief in his voice. For him, it’s almost like Richie  _has_  died with how deep he betrayed Seth by choosing Santanico over his own brother that night at the Twister. Or, as Seth likes to put it, ‘ _becoming that crazy vampire stripper’s personal slave just because she gets his dick hard, the fucking no-good bastard_.’ But Kate’s language has never been quite that colorful.

"Oh, I am sorry for your loss," Aurora says, instantly sympathetic.

"It’s okay," Seth says. "My little Tess here helped me get over the grieving period real quick after I met her." He kisses Kate’s cheek hard and wet for emphasis, and she tries not to think about how soft his lips feel against her skin as she fakes a happy smile in Aurora’s direction.

He’s kissed her once before, a long time ago, more than a kiss on the cheek to boot, but Kate won’t let herself think about that, either.

"I am glad!" Aurora says. "So what brings you two to our bank today? Looking to take out a loan for your business?"

"Actually, we already have the funding," Seth says. "But we need a place to store it now that we’re residents here and all."

"I’m glad you have chosen us here at  _Banco Garcia_!” Aurora chirps. “It would be wonderful to see your faces again sometime soon!”

"Thank you," Seth answers. "Is there perhaps someone we can talk to about the process of setting up an account?"

"Yes, of course," Aurora says. "Our manager, Mr. Fuentez, will be able to tell you all about it. If I can just have your name, I will let him know you’re here."

"It’s Alphonse and Tess Caprice," Seth says, and Kate really hopes that no one figures out his stupid Dick Tracy inspired personas.

"Thank you, Mr. Caprice," Aurora says. "Why don’t you and your wife have a seat in the waiting area and I’ll give Mr. Fuentez a call."

"Sure thing," Seth grins. "Thanks for all your help."

Aurora smiles back at him dreamily and Kate suppresses an eye-roll as Seth leads her over to the cube of comfortable couches and chairs that serve as the waiting area just outside of the conference offices. They sit down together on a love seat, and Seth takes her hand once they’re situated, bringing it over into his lap. Kate crosses her legs and leans her knees towards his, pressed up into his side.

"You alright?" he asks, running his thumb over the back of Kate’s knuckles.

"Yes," she says, glances to where Aurora’s calling the manager. "It was surprisingly easy to lie to her."

"After everything you’ve been through since the Twister, lying’s probably the easiest thing, Kate," Seth says, but he doesn’t say it condescendingly, just like it’s fact.

It took Kate a really long time to tell him what happened to her family, what she  _did_  to her family, but he’s never judged her for it, the same way she’s never judged him for not wanting to go after Santanico and Richie and stop the mayhem at the source. She gets that— she still hasn’t asked him to go find Scott yet, either.

"I guess," Kate says, looking over behind the clerk counter and searching the faces of the tellers there. They all look the same to her— tired, bored. She can only hope that there won’t be anymore than the three of them actually working when they rob the bank, and that the amount of customers will be less. She already knows that they’re going to have to disarm the security guard somehow— she really doesn’t want to have to deal with a civilian playing the hero or something.

"Here’s some good news, at least," Seth whispers then. "That security camera behind the counter? It’s just for show. It’s not even on."

"How can you tell?" Kate asks, looking up at said camera and not seeing anything out of the ordinary.

"The light’s off," Seth says, tipping his head inconspicuously towards the side of the camera where, sure enough, the light is off. "Hopefully the other one’s like that. Takes away half the hassle."

Kate’s about to open her mouth and snark that they still have to worry about the guy with the gun by the entrance of the bank, but then one of the doors to the conference rooms opens, and a small man steps out, walking towards them with purpose. Kate can see that he’s definitely a local, dressed in a cheap suit with his dark hair slicked back. He can’t be any older than thirty-five, and by the way his eyes drag up her nearly bare legs when he stops in front of them, Kate automatically knows she’ll be able to charm any information she wants out of him, exactly what she and Seth were counting on if they got someone who likes women to advise them about opening an account.

"Mr. and Mrs. Caprice," the man greets. "I am Jesus Fuentez, the manager of  _Banco Garcia_. It is very nice to make your acquaintance.”

"You too, Mr. Fuentez," Seth says after he and Kate stand, takes the manager’s offered hand and shakes it firmly.

"Please, call me Jesus," the manager says, turns to Kate and holds his hand out to her after he’s finished shaking Seth’s. Kate expects him to just shake hers too, but then Jesus surprises her by bowing and kissing her the back of her palm, Kate laughing in entertainment until she feels Seth stiffen next to her. When she looks up at him he appears indifferent, but because she knows him so well she can see the small muscle in his jaw twitching minutely, which usually only happens when he’s absolutely  _pissed_.

She only has a moment to wonder what’s made him so mad before Jesus is showing them back into the office he just came out of, shutting the door behind them. Seth and Kate take a seat in the two chairs in front of Jesus’ desk, Seth’s arm sloping around the back of Kate’s chair, his hand curling around the top of her arm almost possessively even though the chairs are pretty spaced apart and the angle’s got to hurt his shoulder.

 _Overselling the newlywed bit here, dude,_  Kate thinks, turning to raise a brow at him. Seth shrugs in reply, squeezing her arm a little tighter.

"So, I hear you are new to town and wish to open a restaurant?" Jesus says as he sits behind his desk, leaning back in his chair and steepling his hands in interest.

"Sure are," Seth says. "My wife and I here need a place to transfer our banking to in order to get the project started in the fall."

"I see," Jesus says, eyes flicking over to Kate and then down to her cleavage; she tries not to grimace and smiles at him flirtatiously instead. "I can assure you, we here are  _Banco Garcia_  would  _love_  your business.”

"You seem like a decent place to invest," Seth says, then clenches his teeth and sighs in disappoint. "But I must let you know, we’re also looking at the  _Banamex_  in Mexico City. I’m sure you can understand that we have a lot of money going into the restaurant, and are a bit concerned of the security in a locally run bank.”

"I understand," Jesus says, slopes forwards towards them and rests his hands on the desk seriously. "But I can assure you that here at _Banco Garcia_ , we are very secure. We have a highly efficient system, and our guard, Diego, is very reliable.”

"I’m sure," Kate says, uncrosses and re-crosses her legs, drawing Jesus’ attention over to her, the man shifting in his seat at her little display. "My husband’s just overly worried. I told him going locally is our best bet, though. Do you think, to put him at mind, we would be able to see the vault?  _Please_?” She bats her lashes for good measure, is glad they don’t stick together from all the eye make-up she put on this morning to try and make herself look older and more experienced.

"I don’t think that would be a problem," Jesus says without hesitance. "Just let me give Diego a call and tell him you wish for a tour."

"Of course," Kate grins.

Jesus smiles back at her cheekily, grabs up the phone off of his desk and enters an extension number before turning away to speak into the phone rapidly in Spanish. Kate lets out a breath of relief, wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. When she looks over at Seth she can see he’s openly glaring now that Jesus’ back is turned to them, and she’s wondering what the man did to piss Seth off so much.

Kate can tell the moment Jesus’ call is finished, knows enough Spanish to recognize a goodbye when she hears one. Before he can turn around and catch Seth mean-mugging him, Kate reaches her hand out and sets it on the middle of Seth’s thigh, squeezing. He glances at her and she quirks a brow just as Jesus spins to face them, Seth’s face switching back into a mask of neutrality.

"We’re all set," Jesus says, grinning at them. "If you’ll just follow me!"

He gets up and goes to the office door, opening it for them expectantly. The moment they’re out on the main floor, Seth’s arm loops back around Kate’s waist. She resists the urge to push him off when she looks over and sees Aurora waving at them excitedly, knowing she can’t break character. Kate waves back, wishes Seth wasn’t trying to rub in the newlyweds thing so hard because she’d like to be walking next to Jesus and flirting more information out of him.

When they get up to the clerk counter they’re joined by the security guard. Kate tries to smile at him but the man just looks at her, expression suspicious. She turns away from his stare, sudden nerves flaring up in the pit of her stomach as Jesus opens the door into the teller area, then leads them to the back where another door opens into the employee break room. Just past that is a small hallway he leads them down to the first door that signals the vault. Kate spies the second security camera mounted into the wall above it, smiling when she realizes that it’s light is off like the other one’s.

"Just one other employee and I have the codes for this, so it is a very secure system," Jesus says as he types a code into a keypad next to the door. A buzzer warning signals before Kate can hear gears grinding together and the door pops open with a hiss.

Jesus motions for them to go in first, and Seth lets Kate go in front of him since the door’s only wide enough for one person at a time. She steps in to the dimly lit room, looking around herself studiously. The middle of the space is empty save for a metal counting table, and the side walls are lined with rows and rows of metal security boxes that are pin-lock encoded. At the back of the room is a huge spin-lock that looks both manually and key-code operated, signaling the strongroom sits behind it, Kate and Seth’s prime target.

A low whistle startles Kate out of her cataloging— she looks behind her as Seth steps up and studies the lock, eyes taking in every angle of its exterior. Jesus and Diego climb in after Seth, the former coming to stand next to Kate.

"This is some serious protection," Seth says.

"It is very… _efficient_ ,” Jesus says, eyes dragging over Kate leisurely.

She stifles her creeped-out look over it with a flirty giggle. “See, honey, this place is perfect to invest,” she says, turning to Seth. She notices then that he’s looking between her and Jesus irritably, must of witnessed the manager’s gross little comment because that muscle in his jaw is twitching again.

"You were right, princess," Seth says, covers the distance between them in two strides. He loops his arm around her shoulders, and before she has time to process it, he’s leaning in and pressing his lips against hers.

It only lasts a moment, but Kate can feel the purpose of the kiss all the way down to her toes. She realizes after Seth’s pulled away that he wasn’t doing it just for show either, looks up into his eyes and sees the intent there, his body warm and firm where it’s pressed into hers. She can almost taste the meaning of it on her tongue, bottom lip still wet from where he slid it between his and nipped her with his teeth just a little, making her skin swell.

Jesus clears his throat then, claps his hands together to get their attention. Kate looks away from Seth quickly, face flushing in embarrassment as she glances over at the manager who seems very uncomfortable, then at the security guard who looks very bored.

"Well, I am glad it is up to your standards!" Jesus says, smiling at them nervously considering Seth’s just looking at the manager like he wants to shoot him. "We can go ahead and start setting up an account today, if you would like?"

"We’ll have to take a rain-check on that, I’m afraid," Kate says, trying her best to smile nonchalantly when the guard raises an eyebrow at her answer. "We have to make sure all of the transfer will run smoothly from our old bank in Houston. And, bless her heart, my husband’s mother is very invested in all of this and wants to know which decision we’ve made before we make it." Kate waves her hands flippantly. "You know how moms can be."

"Ah, yes, yes," Jesus says, and Kate can tell he totally buys her excuse; even the security guard stops staring at her questioningly and goes back to looking bored. "Well then, let us end our visit so you may go and take care of your business."

He ushers them out of the vault and Diego closes the door behind them, sticking back as the rest of their group exits into the break room and then the teller’s area. Kate tries to guess which other employee might have the access code, but can’t get a read on anyone and hopes that it’ll be easier once they pull the actual heist.

"Here is my card so you may call me any time you have questions," Jesus says as they exit from behind the clerk counter, holding out a business card Kate’s way. 

She reaches for it but Seth’s hand intercepts her. “Thanks,” he says. “We’ll be in contact.”

"I look forwards to it," Jesus says, taking a step back from the pair and smiling tightly. "Have a nice day, Mr. and Mrs. Caprice."

"You too," Kate chirps, watches as the manager flits back over to his office, shutting the door behind himself.

She and Seth walk towards the exit, and she thinks that maybe her anxiety about this whole thing was unwarranted. That is, until she hears someone call her name from behind them, freezing in place.

“ _Señorita_  Caprice,  _Señorita_  Caprice!” Kate turns back around slowly, Seth going with her. They come face to face with the security guard, Diego, walking quickly towards them. The hand that Seth doesn’t have around Kate’s waist shifts behind his back to where she knows he has his gun tucked into the waistband of his pants, and Kate thinks this is all going to go downhill very quickly until Diego stops in front of them and holds out his clenched fist, opening it palm-up so Kate can see an earring— her earring laying inside his grip.

"Oh," she says, touching her ears where, sure enough, the left one is bare. She hadn’t even realized the piece of jewelry had fallen off.

“ _Se te cayó en la bóveda, señorita_ ,” Diego says, and Kate just smiles, taking the earring out of his grip.

“ _Gracias_ ,” she says, curling the earring into her own hand.

Diego nods, waves her and Seth out the door before resuming his guarding position.

Kate waits until she’s in the car to breathe out in relief, but then Seth gets in and slams his door shut. He starts up the car and pulls away from the curb, headed back towards their motel room Kate guesses. She looks over at him and sees that he is very purposely staring ahead, her stomach clenching as she thinks about the kiss back in the vault.

That one other time he kissed her before, it was on her eighteenth birthday almost six months ago, and they were both very drunk. They were walking back to their motel room from the bar he’d taken her to to celebrate after last call when Kate’s drunken brain put two and two together that neither of her parents had lived to see her into adulthood, that Scott was gone too, and she just started crying right on the spot.

Seth asked her what was wrong, and she just looked at him and said, “I don’t have any family anymore, Seth. I’m completely alone.”

And he just blinked at her, stepped forwards until there was no space left between them and said, “You’re not alone, baby girl.  _I’m_  your family, and you’re mine.” And then he kissed her, and he kissed her all the way back to the motel room where they fell down on Kate’s bed together, kissing and kissing and kissing until they fell asleep tangled up next to each other warm and safe.

He hadn’t said anything about it the next morning either, so Kate thought he must not have remembered what happened, even though it’s been burned into her memory all this time. She didn’t know how she felt about that until now, but as she thinks about the way he kissed her in the vault, no matter how fleeting it was, she knew he meant it and it wasn’t just a part of the little game they were playing.

"Seth," she says, wanting to ask him what it all leads to.

"Don’t start," he answers her. "Don’t fucking start or I’m gonna go back there and punch that fucker’s goddamn face in."

"It was  _your_  idea for me to flirt with him,” Kate says, just because she’s never done anything he’s told her to unless it’s to keep them both from getting caught.

"For fuck’s sake, Kate!" Seth says, hitting his hand against the steering wheel. The car jerks forwards from the motion and Kate braces a hand against the dashboard, glaring at him. "That doesn’t mean I have to fucking like him standing there undressing you with his no good, goddamn eyes the entire fucking time. He’s old enough to be your  _father_.”

"So are you," Kate shoots back.

That’s the final straw for it though, Seth swerving the car over to the side of the road and throwing it into park. They’re by the town market now, onlookers glancing over to the car after Seth’s just pulled a stunt straight out of the movies. Kate doesn’t get to linger on that though, because suddenly Seth’s leaning over the console and grabbing the back of her head, bringing his mouth down on hers forcefully.

This kiss is different than the one at the bank, or the kisses on her birthday even. The kisses on her birthday had been sweet and caring, and the one at the bank had been short and purposeful. This kiss has an element of both in that it’s caring _and_  purposeful, but it’s far from sweet or short. Kate gasps as soon as Seth’s mouth is on hers, Seth taking the opportunity to slip his tongue past her parted lips, licking at the inside of her mouth like he’s trying to devour her.

She kisses him back after a moment just as violently, wraps one hand around his tie and yanks the Windsor knot tighter, holding him in place. Seth groans when she uses her other hand to grab his hair, pulling the soft strands between her fingers. The fingers he doesn’t have on the back of her head go to her neck, first four curving around the back while his thumb slides just below her jaw, pressing into her pulse harshly.

Their mouths clash together again and again, teeth clacking from the desperation in their movements, lips slipping together so raw Kate can taste blood from where Seth’s upper lip has split because he never uses chap stick even though Kate’s always telling him to before this sort of thing happens. She digs her fingers tighter into his scalp as a kind of ‘ _I told you so_ ' and smirks when Seth groans again, body bowing farther over the console and into hers until Kate's pressed up against the passenger door and panting.

They’re so caught up in each other and the heat of the moment that they forget they’re in a public place, both pulling apart with a start when they hear a child scream, bodies on high alert from months of hunting and learning that screams never mean good things. Kate’s eyes flicker out the window, but she sees that the kid who screamed is just playing tag with some others in the middle of the market, and that everything is okay.

She exhales slowly, turns back to Seth. They’re still touching each other the same as they did when they were kissing, but now instead of closed, their eyes are wide open and just staring at each other, waiting to see who’s going to make the first move this time.

Eventually Seth gives up, breathes out a sigh and sits back in his seat, adjusting his slacks— Kate bites her lip as she sees the way he’s trying to cover his very obvious arousal, feels both embarrassed and strangely powerful for causing that. She glances up at his face after a moment and sees he’s back to staring out the window.

"Don’t tell me you kissed your dad like that," he says after when the silence becomes too much, and it’s just such a completely Seth thing to say at a time like this that Kate can’t help the full-out stomach hurting laugh she gives, keeps laughing when he turns to grin at her, both of their nerves over casing for the job completely gone.

“ _God no_ ,” Kate says, shaking her head as she holds her stomach where the muscles are starting to hurt. “And for the record, I wouldn’t kiss _anyone_  else like that, either.”

"Not that stupid Jesus guy?" Seth asks, grin turning to a sharp frown.

"Fuck no," Kate says, watches as the way she curses makes Seth smile again just a little; he loves that he’s been able to corrupt her like that in minute ways over time. "But that doesn’t I’m saying I like you or anything, Gecko, so don’t let it go to your head."

"Sure, sure," Seth says, puts the car into drive and pulls away from the curb. "That’s why we’re married, right?"

Kate rolls her eyes, looks down at the ring on her finger with a smirk. “It’s not really my taste, y’know? Too flashy.”

"Then I’ll get you a gold band or something," Seth says unthinkingly, waits for a moment after he’s said it and glances back over at her. "We would have enough money from this job for me to do that."

"Are you proposing?" Kate asks, eyebrows shooting up in bewilderment.

"Naw," Seth says. "I’m just saying that I could buy you a ring if you want, for putting up with my stupid, jealous ass and all."

"I don’t want a ring," Kate says, reaches over to take his hand and squeeze it tight. "I’m not ‘putting up with you,’ Seth. I’m here because I want to be."

He looks over at her and smiles softly. “I meant what I said on your eighteenth birthday, before I kissed you that first time,” he says, shocking her. “You’re my family, Kate.”

"And you’re mine, you big marshmallow," Kate says, sticking her tongue out at him and crossing her eyes goofily.

He laughs. “Once we pull this job, maybe we can get out of here. Ditch Mexico and make Santanico and Richie chase us all over Europe. I’m sure there’s monsters over there that need killing.”

"On one condition," Kate says, even though she suddenly really likes the idea of dropping a culebra or something off the Eiffel Tower.

"What’s that?" Seth asks.

"I never have to wear this  _goddamn_  dress again,” Kate says.

Seth laughs and drives them back to the motel room where there’s more laughter and even more kisses. By the end of the day as Kate lays in Seth’s warm embrace, body sated and his touch warm and familiar as they watch old westerns on the television and share a warm beer, she realizes that maybe casing the bank wasn’t such a bad time after all.

 

 


	5. Nobody puts Katie in a corner.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie/Seth/Kate - she makes them watch Dirty Dancing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt of Richie/Seth/Kate - she makes them watch Dirty Dancing by who i now consider my bea for all the wonderful prompts, seren-pen. Sort of a continuation of And you will be free, as it’s set in the same universe of the fantastic four living together human and happy, taking place a few months after Kate and Richie discuss her favorite movie.  
> It's also silly as hell.

([original on tumblr](http://hasitsclaws.tumblr.com/post/89243892161/nobody-puts-katie-in-a-corner))

* * *

 

 

"You know we love you a lot to be doing this, right?" Richie asks as he sits down on the couch next to Kate, bowl of popcorn balanced in his lap.

Kate takes a sip of her Yoo-Hoo and grins. “I know,” she says.

Seth’s arm twitches behind her on the couch, tapping his brother on the shoulder with his index finger in welcome to their little movie night. “I thought your favorite movie was Labyrinth, princess?” he asks Kate, switching play on the remote with his free hand.

"It is," Kate says as the title sequence starts up, Be My Baby filling the room with sound. "But Dirty Dancing’s a classic, and I can’t believe you two bimbos haven’t seen it."

“ _Bimbos_ ,” Richie scoffs, reaching over to flick her in the ear; Kate flinches, retaliates by punching Richie in the arm and making him grunt. “Remind me why I’m here again when Scott got away with not watching?”

"Because the lucky bastard’s at a friend’s house, and if  _I_  have to endure this, so do you,” Seth says.

“ _Shh_ ,” Kate hisses as the first frame begins to roll. “It’s starting.”

It’s been a few months since Richie and Kate’s whole Labyrinth moment, and strangely bonding over the movie has inspired them to watch a new cult classic with Scott and Seth at least twice a week.

On Tuesday night the brothers made Kate endure the original Evil Dead, so she figured it was only fair she have them watch Dirty Dancing with her as a trade. Richie and Seth had both groaned at the choice, Scott rolling his eyes off to the side because Kate’s made him watch the flick more times in his life than Scott would like to remember. That’s probably why he specifically set up a sleepover for Friday Movie Night with his gamer buddy, Carmen, in the next town over, leaving just Seth and Richie to endure Kate’s film pick. Kate’s okay with that though, as long as she gets the Gecko brothers to watch the magic that is Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze dancing together to cheesy eighties music onscreen.

Like a good husband and brother-in-law, Seth and Richie are able to sit through the movie eating popcorn and sipping Corona up until the “Loverboy” scene where Baby’s crawling across the floor towards Johnny before they lose their shit.

"Jesus Christ," Seth laughs, Kate glaring over at him for interrupting one of her favorite parts. "You can’t tell me this really turns you on, princess?"

"I don’t know," Richie snickers. "She was blushing brighter and brighter the closer they got to doing it. Maybe you should try those moves in the bedroom, Seth. You two have been awfully quiet, lately."

“ _Richie_!” Kat squeals, hiding her face behind her hands.

"Shut up, Richard!" Seth snaps, his own face getting hot.

"All I’m saying is that if you pulled off that lift thing with her, I think you’d earn some serious points," Richie smirks.

Kate resists the urge to strike out and punch him in the face, only because they had to buy him a new pair of glasses last week after he and Scott were playing baseball and Scott swung the bat right into Richie’s face and broke Richie’s old pair for no other reason than Scott is terrible at playing baseball and Richie took too long to realize this.

"Can we just watch the movie?!" Kate asks, jerking up between the two brothers and fixing both of them with a glare. " _Please_.”

"Fine," Richie says, rolling his eyes. "But only because you asked nicely."

"You’re a prick," Seth says to his brother as Kate settles back down between them.

"Yeah, yeah," Richie snorts, shoving a fistful of popcorn into his mouth.

Kate sighs, tries to focus on the movie again but suddenly becomes hyper-aware of the way her body’s reacting to the sexual tension between the two main characters, the Gecko brothers watching her closely. She spends the rest of the film trying not to cross her thighs too much, and also trying not to cry at the end lest she be judged by Seth and/or Richie because they declare the big dance number in the finale to be a total stereotype fest.

"For once I wish we could watch a movie I like without critiquing every aspect of it," Kate groans as she turns the DVD player off, television screen cutting to static.

"Hey, I can’t help if I’m more of a Brando than Swayze guy," Seth says, holding his hands up defensively.

"What a  _liar_!” Richie accuses. “If I remember correctly, you went to see Ghost in theaters  _twice_  when the local cinema re-aired it those couple of months we were living with Uncle Eddie in New Mexico.”

"Shut up, Richard!" Seth hisses.

"Really?" Kate asks, raising a brow in interest.

"Totally," Richie says. "Seth had the biggest fucking hard-on for Demi Moore when we were teenagers— isn’t that right, Seth— e _ah_!”

Kate jumps back as Seth flies over her on the couch to tackle Richie to the floor, both of them swinging their fists and arms bluntly at each other. In more ways than one, Richie still has his culebra instincts, showing through the surface as he bites Seth’s arm after a couple of minutes of rolling around like a pair of idiots, Seth yelping before kneeing Richie right in the crotch, both of them doubling over and panting in pain.

"If you two dumbasses are finished," Kate says from where she’s still sitting on the couch, slow smile creeping into place as she forms a plan. "I know a way you can settle this without killing each other."

"And how’s that?" Richie asks, adjusting his new glasses which are, thank God, not broken this time.

"With a dance-off," Kate chirps.

Both Seth and Richie look at each other then, eyebrows in their hairlines before both of them just sort of shrug. Kate wonders how many hits to the head they gave each other to agree so quickly, but doesn’t want to push her luck so she just stands up, starting to move the couch up against the back wall.

"What are you doing?" Seth asks from where he’s laying on the floor, poking grimly at the bite Richie gave him.

"We’ve gotta have room," Kate grunts, and after a moment Seth sighs and joins her, and Richie slides Scott’s armchair into the built-in bookshelves of the east corner, before moving the coffee table up against the entertainment center. "There," Kate says, surveying the now empty floor of the living room. "Now what song are we gonna use?"

"Definitely not anything from the movie," Richie says.

"How about Black Pistol Fire?" Seth asks.

"Sure, if you wanna use imitation nineties shit," Richie grimaces.

"Hey, they’re a  _good_  band!” Seth argues.

Kate rolls her eyes as the two start to bicker again, goes over to the entertainment center and pops one of the many CDs in that Scott illegally burned for her. The bass starts up quick, clever beat picking up in the room, making Seth and Richie pause to listen.

"Who’s this?" Richie asks, making a face like he begrudgingly approves.

"Artic Monkeys," Kate says, tapping her feet. "Prove danceable enough?"

"Why the fuck not?" Seth asks, throwing his hands up in defeat. "But hold on."

Kate and Richie watch as he shuffles into the kitchen and pulls out a bottle of whiskey from beneath the sink, taking a long pull before coming back to them. “Seriously?” Richie asks, and Seth just flips him the bird.

"What are we playing for, here, princess?" Seth asks, turning to Kate and measuring the stakes.

"Owning each other’s asses," Kate says.

"No, no, there’s got to be more in it than that," Richie inputs, and not for the first time Kate wishes she hadn’t married into such a greedy family.

“ _Fine_ ,” she says, setting her hands on her hips and saying something she knows is instantly going to up the stakes. “Winner gets to kiss me.”

"Absolutely not!" Seth says at the same time Richie answers, "Okay!"

"It won’t be easy though," Kate warns. "You only win if you can seduce me with your moves and do _the lift_.”

"From the fuckin’ movie?" Seth groans.

"From the fuckin’ movie," Kate nods.

"What’s the matter, brother— afraid you’re going to lose and stay stagnant in the bedroom?" Richie taunts.

"I’m gonna fucking  _kill_  you, Richard,” Seth says, shaking his index finger angrily.

“ _Hey_!” Kate says. “Are we gonna do this or not?”

"Fine," Seth says. "But I go first."

"After you," Richie says, waving one arm out in a dramatic bow.

Seth shoves him backwards with a scowl, stepping up to Kate and holding his arms out. She smiles and moves into the embrace, Seth beginning to sway with her slowly. It’s soft like that at first, hesitant the way her and Seth’s relationship first started developing. But then at the chorus he ups the stakes, spinning Kate in a dizzying circle and dipping her back, pulling her up sharp so that their lips are almost touching, but not quite.

"Where’d you learn to dance like this?" Kate asks, astounded.

"Vanessa," Seth shrugs. "She was determined we learn how to tango for some Godforsaken reason."

"Remind me to thank her," Kate grins, just before Seth dips her again, bringing his knee up between her legs and pressing her flush against his thigh, Kate’s body automatic to the arousing touch after so long without it, her cheeks getting red and heat pooling in the pit of her stomach.

Seth moves them back in intricate steps, Kate able to keep up because from age six to twelve she thought she wanted to be a professional dancer when she grew up and begged her mom to enroll her in dance classes. They samba together slowly for a moment, and when the song starts to come to a close, Kate steps back, raising an eyebrow expectantly at her husband. He swallows nervously, taking a few steps back of his own.

Kate bites her lips, twirls her hips in anticipation before launching herself forwards. Seth catches her, but just as he’s lifting her up, his bad shoulder— the one he got stabbed in while they were down in the Underworld killing the Nine— gives out.

They fall to the floor in a tangle of limbs, Seth’s hands holding her up so his body takes the brunt of the impact. When Kate’s able to get her breath again she looks up at him, sees the amusement swimming in his gaze and laughs, leaning forwards to kiss him. Just before their lips meet though, Richie’s there pulling her up.

"He didn’t win," Richie says pointedly.

"And you will?" Seth asks from where he sits up on the floor a little. "Yeah fuckin’ right."

"Watch and learn, brother," Richie winks as a new song comes on.

Kate recognizes the electric beat of Fallulah right away, one of her favorite bands when she was a junior in high school. She smiles and looks over at Richie, the way he’s taking his sweat jacket off purposefully and throwing it on Seth’s face; the latter scoffs, tossing the article of clothing into the kitchen with a scowl after pulling it off his head.

For her part, Kate tries not to giggle as Richie moves over to her, offering his hand. Kate takes it, pressing her opposite palm against his shoulder as Richie grips her waist. They waltz together intimately, Richie’s gaze more intense than his brother’s, but that’s just a trait about him Kate’s gotten used to over the years.

As the chorus comes on Richie switches their position, letting go of Kate’s hand to drag both of his own up her waist slowly, making her skin tingle. She gasps as he grips her shoulder blades, pulling her close and bowing her back before righting her again.

"Don’t tell me Vanessa taught you how to dance, too," Kate says breathlessly.

"No," Richie says, voice a little hard. "Santanico…"

Kate doesn’t push him on that, just gyrates around with him slow and purposeful before Richie surprises her by throwing her back and then spinning her into his body again, Kate’s shoulders pressed into his chest, his nose skimming up her neck. Kate swallows dryly, wondering if this was a stupid idea as she looks over at Seth and sees him sulking like a kid that’s had his favorite toy taken away, lower lip out in a pout and arms crossed over his chest.

Her eyes don’t have time to linger on him though before Richie’s spinning her again, throwing in some kind of jazzy move she has to improvise on, their hips coming together at the end and she can feel how excited this is all making him, steadily avoids his eyes and keeps dancing before he suddenly picks her up off her feet and spins them, setting her back into place and kneeling down along the front lines of her before coming back up and dipping her again, making Kate’s head whirl.

She’s so caught up in it she doesn’t realize it’s nearly the end of the song until Richie’s backing up and motioning for her to come forwards. Kate shakes her head to clear it, gets her bearings and starts to leap. She lands in Richie’s arms and knows right away he’s going to make the lift, hasn’t aged or been wounded like his brother, body still strong and nimble.

Just as he’s about to get her forehead to touch his though, they go toppling over right onto Seth who’s tripped them.

“ _Fuck_!” Seth shouts as Richie digs his elbow into Seth’s bad shoulder on purpose as they land, Kate ending up sprawled out on top of the two brothers’ bodies, about to cough up a lung because Seth accidentally kneed her in the stomach when she landed on him.

"You dick!" Richie shouts.

"You’re not kissing  _my wife_ , fucker,” Seth snaps.

"It’s just a game," Richie says.

"Sure," Seth drawls, and Kate can tell they’re about ready to start throwing punches again.

"Boys!" she says, both of them snapping to attention as she adjusts her top and frowns. "Stop acting like little kids."

"This was  _your_  idea, if you remember correctly,” Seth snips, starting to pout again.

Kate rolls her eyes, stands up and goes to turn the CD player off. “Remind me never to pick the movie again,” she says.

"I don’t know," Richie comments from where he’s now just laying back against the floor, smiling up at the ceiling. "This was actually kind of…fun."

"Sure," Seth laughs sarcastically. "I’ll go ahead and get you ball-room dancing lessons for your birthday then."

"And then I can pick up a date there and at least  _one_  of us will be getting laid,” Richie shoots back.

"Jesus Christ," Kate says, pressing her face into her hands. After a moment she breathes out a harsh breath and starts walking towards her and Seth’s bedroom.

"Where are you going?" Seth asks.

"To sleep," she says. "You two go out in the yard and duke this out if you have to. I’m done."

She slams the bedroom door behind her and flops down on the bed, resisting the sudden urge to cry. Just once she wishes they could have a fun night together instead of turning on one another like a pack of wild dogs. She knows everyone is antsy now that there are no more monsters to kill, but for Pete’s sake, with how many fights they all get into on a daily basis they’ll be lucky if the house is still standing by spring.

For an hour she just lays there and thinks about that, before she suddenly hears the door creaking open softly. Kate keeps her face pressed into the pillows though, not wanting to talk to either of them. As always Seth and Richie don’t take the hint, their bodies dipping the mattress down as they lay on either side of her, arms bracing her back.

"I’m sorry, princess," Seth says, kissing her hair softly.

"Yeah," Richie agrees. "We’re assholes."

"You  _are_  assholes,” Kate says, still not looking at them.

"It’s just too stuffy here, you know that," Seth explains. "We’re all just riled up and have nothing to take it out on but each other."

"That’s not an excuse to do so," Kate says, turning to peek one eye up at him. "And Richie’s right— we haven’t had sex in a long time."

"Knew it," Richie whispers; Kate jabs tow fingers into the side of his neck. "Fuck— sorry."

"I know, baby girl," Seth whispers, rubbing his hand along the top of her tailbone. "You’ve just been sadder than usual, is all. And I didn’t wanna push."

"We’ve all been sadder than usual," Richie says. "Maybe we just need to get out of here for a while."

"Like where?" Kate asks. "If I remember correctly, you’re still both wanted in the States, so Disney World or something’s out of the question."

"Disney World’s for pussies anyways," Seth chuckles. "How about we go to London?"

"Why London?" Kate asks, squinting in confusion.

"Well…" Seth says, looking sheepish. "I was gonna wait to say anything until we were sure, but Freddie called last week and said they might be suffering from a werewolf epidemic."

“ _Werewolves_?” Kate asks, sitting up quite suddenly in anticipation.

"Well I’ll be damned," Richie smirks. "American werewolves in London!"

Seth nods, leveling up next to Kate and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear in old habit. “Maybe a good ol’ hunt would take away all the melancholy?”

"It does sound nice, right, Kate?" Richie asks, leaning over to hug her back and peek up at her from under her forearm.

Kate bites her lip, nodding hesitantly. She was hoping the weight of the past would have no more power over her, but she knows all the hurt and adrenaline isn’t going to go away at the drop of a hat. Just a year ago they were killing  _Gods_  after all, and now she realizes that a homestead sort of life isn’t going to satiate her right away. They went into it head-first, didn’t have enough time to come down from a blood-fueled high.

"And I’ll tell you what," Seth says, leaning in to kiss her. "We’ll even watch Dirty Dancing again on the plane, Scott included."

"Really?" Kate asks eagerly. "And you won’t make fun of it?"

"Scout’s honor," Richie says from behind her.

Seth rolls his eyes fondly. “Yeah, princess,” he says. “But no lifts this time. My shoulder can’t take it.”

Kate laughs, leans forwards and buries her head into his chest, Richie’s arms going around her back and Seth’s arms going around them both. They fall asleep like that, and when Kate wakes up in the morning it’s to Richie snoring in her ear and Seth making breakfast, always the early riser.

She joins him in the kitchen, rubbing sleep out of her eyes and Richie’s drool off of her shoulder. Seth’s in just his boxers and Richie’s discarded sweat jacket from last night, flipping pancakes on the stove. Kate creeps up and wraps her arms around his waist, feeling him tense in alert before stilling as he recognizes her touch not a second later.

"So we’re going to London?" she asks, kissing his neck suggestively.

"Sure are, baby girl," Seth sighs, leaning back into her embrace. "Gonna get all this stagnancy out of our systems."

"And kick some werewolf ass," Kate says excitedly.

"You bet," Seth says. "Nobody puts Katie in the corner, not for long."

Kate laughs and kisses him, Seth twisting around in her embrace and groaning as she presses him back into the counter. They’re just in the middle of trying to get her shorts off when Richie walks in, pulling his chair out at the table out noisily.

"Nice to know the thought of killing things turns you on, Kate," he says.

Kate throws a pancake at him, Richie’s reflexes still quick as a snake so he catches it before it can hit him in the face, shoving half of the breakfast confection in his mouth. “Thanks,” he says, chewing noisily.

Kate rolls her eyes, turns back to help Seth bring everything to the table. They all start eating before the brothers bring up the movie from the night before again.

"Maybe it wasn’t that bad," Seth laments.

"Yeah, Swayze had it going on back then," Richie says, licking syrup off of his fingers in allusion.

Kate nearly chokes on her orange juice, kicks him from across the table. “You’re repugnant,” she says.

"That’s why you like me so much," he answers.

"Okay, lover boy," Seth says, realizes his mistake the moment the words are out of his mouth and Richie and Kate turn to each other, eyes lighting up in malicious glee. "Oh no!" Seth says, quickly standing from the table and trying to escape, but Richie moves lightening fast and cuts him off.

"Silvia?" Richie asks, smirking over Kate’s way.

"Yes Mickey?" Kate asks, standing up and dancing towards him and Seth swayingly.

"Jesus Christ," Seth says, smacking himself in the face.

"How do you call your lover boy?" Richie asks.

"Come ‘ere, lover boy!" Kate calls, sidling up next to Richie and pulling on the sleeve of his t-shirt.

"And if he doesn’t answer?"

"Ohh lover boy!" Kate says, turning to Seth and crooking her finger at him.

"Why did I sign myself up for this?" Seth asks, shaking his head in embarrassment over his family.

"And if he still doesn’t answer?" Richie asks, talking over his brother.

Kate grins. “Oh, why I simply say  _bay-by_!” She drops to the floor and crawls towards Seth, grinning up at him as he stares down at her exasperatedly, but she can see the beginning of a grin at the corner of his mouth. “Oohh bay-by, my sweet bay-by, you’re the one!” Kate says, jerking on Seth’s ankle until he gives in and kneels down next to her, grabbing up around her waist and pulling her close, blowing raspberries against her throat and making her squirm and giggle.

Richie joins them, wrapping them up in his arms as they all cheer, “Baby, oh bay-by, my sweet  _bay_ -b _y_ , you’re the one!” goofily, dissolving into a fit of laughter as the keep up the mantra in different tones of silly voices.

They’re so busy acting like a bunch of idiots that they don’t even hear the door open or Scott walk into until he drops his backpack on the floor and the trio freezes, looking up from where they’re tangled together on the floor with wide eyes.

"Uh, am I interrupting something?" Scott asks, looking very confused and even a little afraid and/or disturbed.

Kate, Seth and Richie all look at each other before sharing a smile and attacking him, pulling him down into a group hug and singing a chorus of, “Oh bay-by, my sweet  _bay-by_!” at him, finally getting Scott to laugh until they’re all rolling on the floor with it, clutching their bellies and smiling happily at one another.

And Kate knows that they may always crave their fill of blood, but in moments like these, she’s happy that her strange little family is enough for each other, and that nobody can put them in the corner no matter how hard they try.

 

 


	6. And we all know love is a glass which makes even a monster appear fascinating.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie/Kate where Richie looks like Seth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt of Richie/Kate where Richie looks like Seth from baniwi

 

(original on [tumblr](http://hasitsclaws.tumblr.com/post/90234251501/and-we-all-know-love-is-a-glass-which-makes-even-a))

* * *

 

 

Seth goes out drinking on his and Richie’s birthday.

He did this last year too. Kate remembers being miffed that they are exactly a year apart in age, but that amazement had gone away when Seth had stumbled in later that night so drunk he couldn’t even see straight. He offered to take Kate out drinking for her own birthday (the big eighteen) a month later, but she figured he’d already had more than enough for the both of them on his and Richie’s and had declined.

She’ll say no to the offer this year too when she turns nineteen, she already knows.

So instead of drinking with Seth she smokes while waiting for him. It’s not really a habit she’s picked up in the year and a half she’s been traveling around Mexico with the eldest Gecko, hustling tourists and killing culebras like it’s first nature, but she figures it’s as much a homage to the Gecko brothers as she’s got. Seth quit right before he went to prison, but he picked it back up after the Twister from all the stress. And Richie never stopped as far as she knows.

Kate sits by the edge of the drained pool of the motel they’re staying at for the week, wearing just her sleep shorts and a tank top, shoes left in the room. She has a can of flat Diet Coke next to her, is puffing away at the pack of Reds Seth left on the nightstand before going out.

She’s learned how to inhale now. Snatched one or two from Seth on long drives just for the hell of it, doesn’t choke on the nicotine. Her spine bends as she takes a long drag, bones popping out because even though she’s gotten plush and strong from lots of fast food and feats of athleticism during hunting, she’s still not nourished enough. Seth worries about that, but Kate can’t bring herself to care. Sometimes she wishes that her entire body would just  _stop_  so it wouldn’t hurt anymore.

But she knows she can’t give up, not all the way.

Seth needs her. She doesn’t know when they stopped being together out of pure desire for companionship and started being together out of pure need for love. They fucked for the first time just two weeks after her eighteenth birthday. It didn’t mean much other than a new form of release then, but in the past eleven months since, it’s turned into more. Sometimes Seth even talks about getting married, moving to Europe and settling down, but Kate knows that last bit is never going to happen. They love the thrill of the kill, the  _revenge_  of it too much.

"Smoking kills, y’know?"

"Look who’s talking," Kate smirks as Seth’s familiar frame bends down next to her at the side of the pool. He’s wearing the same jeans and t-shirt he went out in, his mouth sloped sharp and pretty as he smiles over at her. "Give up on binge drinking?"

"I missed you," he answers, which shocks her, because even though they’ve said a lot of soft, meaningful things in the last couple of months, it’s always been pillow talk. It’s like Seth reserves sweet nothings for the privacy of their bed only.

Kate blinks, takes a closer looks at him and notices the way he’s sitting tall, posture straight unlike the usual hunch he has to his shoulders. “Are you okay?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Maybe I’m a little drunk.”

Sighing, she leans into his side and feels her nerves spark up when his arm goes around her.  _Oh_ , she thinks, because it’s been a while since she’s felt thrilled from his touch instead of comforted and loved. Seth kisses her jaw and it makes her body rattle, because usually he kisses the top of her head.

"You inhale now," he says.

"I’ve been doing that for a while," Kate answers, squinting over at him in the dim lights reflecting off the motel’s  _vacancy_  sign.

"I never noticed," he answers, voice lilting in such a very Seth way that suddenly all the suspicion drains out of her body and is replaced with calm.

"I wish it didn’t hurt you to turn another year older," she whispers, figures if he can be sentimental right now, then she can, too.

"It’s not just me," he answers.

"I know," she says. "I’m sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for, Kate.  _I’m_  the one that should be saying sorry. I left you alone for a bottle of beer. I’m a dick,” he says, mouth slanting on her jaw again and leaving a warm, wet trail down the side of her neck.

"It’s okay," Kate says breathlessly, skin going warm all over.

"No, it’s not," Seth answers, sucking at the juncture of her shoulder.

All the heat in Kate’s body starts to rush down between her thighs at that. They haven’t had sex in two weeks (had a bad hunt and Seth bruised a rib and they’ve had to wait) and unfortunately she really is still only not even nineteen and she’s ruled by her hormones. The sudden need to have him inside of her is sharp, her limbs springing into motion as she stands up, can of flat soda and pack of cigarettes forgotten.

"Do your ribs hurt?" she asks.

Seth looks up at her for a moment like he’s confused, but then he shakes his head. “I’m good.”

"Come on, then," Kate says, holding out her hand expectantly. "I know  _exactly_  how to make you feel better about tonight.”

He grins, rises to his feet and follows her back to the motel room. They make it to the door before he spins her, pins her up against the flimsy wooden structure and his mouth comes down onto hers hungrily.

The kiss is different than his usual ones.

Seth always kisses her desperately, like he’s trying to press her into his body so she can never leave him the way Richie left. But he also kisses her like she’s fragile and he doesn’t want to break her.

Right now he’s kissing her like he wants to devour her whole, hands grabbing heavily at her sides and bruising tight, making Kate’s spine crick and her head rattle. She fumbles blinding to unlock the door behind them, and when she finally does they stumble back, Seth kicking the door closed with a bang as sharp as a gunshot.

They land on the bed in a heap of limbs, Kate’s arms bracketed around his shoulders and her teeth biting at his neck the way he likes it. Only though he’s squirming against her a little, when usually he’d be grinding down into her, practically fucking her into the mattress even though they have layers of fabric between them.

"What’s wrong?" Kate asks, pulling away for a moment and staring up at him, pushing the hair out of his face. She cuts it for him every month, and the due-date’s quickly rolling around with how shaggy his bangs are getting.

"Nothing," he groans. "That just feels  _so_  good and I—” he bites his lip, unusual but it’s kind of amusing. “God, I want to fuck you.”

"Then _do_  it,” she answers, grabs at the back of his shirt and insistently pulls it up.

It gets caught on his shoulders and he sits back on his knees, wraps his arms around his waist and pulls from the bottom hem. That floors her— Seth always grabs the back of his collar to take his shirt off. She opens her mouth to ask him what’s changed when suddenly he’s kissing her again, sparks all over and she’s too distracted to remember what she was just thinking about.

They help pull her sleep shorts off together, and then he’s hooking his fingers in her underwear, dragging them down her legs quick before quite suddenly his mouth is up between her thighs, licking and biting at her to the point it almost stings.

"Seth…?" Kate asks, breath coming out in a sharp squeak.

While Seth’s not stingy about eating her out (does it all the time actually, sometimes several rounds over the course of a few tortuous, wonderful hours) he never does it like  _this_. The way Seth goes down on her is soft and teasing— he always kisses her thighs first, the curve of her hips and bites at the soft swell of her lower tummy. He smiles at her and tickles her and makes her laugh before he finally tastes her, long, slow licks after he mouths teasingly at her clit.

Now he’s doing it too sharp, too much, too fast. Kate’s very sensitive, they’ve learned. Small everywhere, and when he’s suddenly got two fingers inside of her it kind of burns, but not in the good way his cock does when she stretches around him after he finally enters her.

Kate moans just because it also feels a little good, her head tossing against the comforter as he presses her knees open wide. Usually he’d wrap her legs over his shoulders, likes it when she traps his head between them and pulls his hair. Now though he grabs her hands when she tries, locks her wrists in his fingers and  _squeezes_.

Something about that ruins the entire thing.

"Stop," Kate says, starts struggling when he doesn’t. "Seth,  _stop_.”

Finally he listens, glances up at her with dark eyes. She notices then the slight swell of  _blood_  on his mouth, realizes all too quickly why everything hurt so much, why he was acting so strange.

"You’re not Seth," she says, all of the breath rushing out of her lungs.

"Sure took you a while to figure it out, Katie-cakes," not Seth smirks.

Something like a sob escapes the back of her throat then, shame and fear and embarrassment and panic rushing into her. Because she should have  _known_. Should have realized from the moment he sat down next to her at the pool that this isn’t the man she loves, isn’t her family, her  _home_. She should have  _known_  and she didn’t and she kissed him and touched him and let him—

His hand is still holding her wrists together, the fingers of the other branding into her hip to hold her down. But the real Seth has taught Kate more than how to con like a pro or hold her liquor.

She twists out of the impostor’s embrace, brings her heel up and kicks it hard into the side of his skull. The moment he lets go of her she rolls her body off the bed, lands in a crouch and flips over next to their duffles by the bathroom, pulling out the revolver Seth got her for her birthday last year after they started hunting.

By now not Seth has recovered, sitting up on the bed and raising a brow at her as Kate pulls back the safety and aims the barrel at his chest. “Who  _are_  you?” she asks.

"There’s a reason I feel familiar," he answers.

Kate just stares at him, at the slope of his mouth and inhuman length of his eyelashes. He looks like Seth and knows how to act the role for the most part, knows her nickname even. She thinks about when he sat by her at the pool and was surprised she inhales now.

"Richie," Kate says, can literally feel her heart skip its next beat.

Not Seth’s posture shifts, mouth tugging up into a grin before it’s overridden in scales and sharp teeth. Then, just like that, there’s Richie’s beautiful, beautiful face and baby blue eyes, his slicked-back hair and long limbs and freckled, naked skin.

"What’d you do with Seth?" Kate asks, the sharp bite of tears making her eyes burn as her body starts to shake.

"He’s safe," Richie says. "Just gave him a little bite was all. He really was being a dick for leaving you on your own."

“ _You_  left  _him_ ,” Kate counters, baring her teeth and pretending to be brave.

"I had to," Richie says, but there’s a glint of guilt there in his expression and Kate knows that he regrets it.

"Then why’d you come back?" she asks, hating that something selfish and hungry inside of her has wished he never would, that he’d be gone for good and she could keep this broken little world she’s made with Seth, this twisted, bloody home where it’s just the two of them and tragedy.

But there’s also something even darker in her heart is wishing that Richie would’ve stayed from the beginning.

"Like I said," Richie answers, and Kate knows that it’s going to ruin everything when he smiles and says, "I missed you."

"Not good enough," she whispers, finger rubbing up against the trigger.

"Are you going to kill me, Kate?" Richie asks, the sarcastic edge to his voice making her insides bubble with rage. "What kind of birthday present would that be?"

“ _Where’s_.  _Seth_?” she asks again, eyes narrowing on the bow of Richie’s mouth which is so so much like his brother’s.

"If I told you that," Richie answers. "Then all the fun would be ruined."

“ _Richard_ ,” Kate warns, trying so hard to be brave.

"Alright, alright," he smirks, stands up off the bed and just laughs when she keeps the gun trained on him. He looks down at her there in just her tank top, blood on her thighs and shaking hands locked around the trigger. "I’ll tell you if you let me finish what I started."

 

 

 


	7. We'll ruin you; we've ruined others, too.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Seth rob a bank and take Kate hostage after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt of Richie/Kate or Seth/Kate or Richie/Kate/Seth in which Kate works at a bank and the boys come a-robbin’ from atethebirds.

 

 

([original on tumblr](http://hasitsclaws.tumblr.com/post/90647044791/well-ruin-you-weve-ruined-others-too))

* * *

 

 

The summer before Kate Fuller’s senior year of high school, she gets her first real job that isn’t just babysitting the neighbor’s kids or mowing old lady Talbot’s front yard.

Her father finds her an internship at the local bank where she’s going to sub-in for a teller on maternity leave.

The bank’s manager, Mr. Riley, is a faithful attendant of her father’s old church and is happy to pay the now retired Pastor Fuller the favor of giving his teenage daughter the job since she needs the money for college next fall. 

After her mother’s funeral, Kate’s family became crippled financially, and it’s only gotten worse now that her dad’s out of a job and they have to pay their own mortgage instead of the church doing it for them. If Kate has any shot at attending college, it’s with forty hours a week at Bethel Banking, hating every minute of it.

"You look like an anchor woman," Scott says the Monday of Kate’s second week of work.

She used the money from her first paycheck to buy herself some decently professional attire so she doesn’t have to wear her good Sunday dresses to work anymore. Kate had thought that she looked nice in her dress-suit, black pinstripes with a flowery blouse and peep-toed pumps included. But now she’s second-guessing herself thanks to Scott’s little comment.

Scowling, she picks up a spoonful of Lucky Charms out of her cereal bowl and flings it at her brother’s chest, slopping the mess onto the front of Scott’s  _Battle Royale_  t-shirt for payback.

"Hey!" Scott says, pulls his now damp shirt away from his skin and dusts rainbow marshmallows off the stain with a frown. "It’s the truth and you know it, Kate. You look like Goddamn Veronica Corningstone but less hot."

"Scott," their father warns from across the kitchen table behind the screen of the morning newspaper. "Do not take our Lord’s name in vain."

Kate glances over at her brother and they share a collective eye roll. Their father preaching anything about God now that he’s quit his job is nothing short of hypocritical. Kate can’t really blame him for leaving the church after what happened to Momma and all, but she also wants to tell him to just  _sha-ut_  up whenever he starts spieling like he’s in the pulpit. That’s not his place, not anymore.

"I’m going to be late," Kate says then, picking up her bowl and taking it over to the sink to rinse out.

"Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?" her dad asks, folding the newspaper closed and setting it on the checkered tablecloth.

Kate shakes her head. “Kyle’s taking me again.”

"Are you going back out with that weirdo?" Scott asks, crinkling his nose.

"No," Kate says. She and Kyle have been broken up for months, but they’re still on good enough terms that he gives her rides since she doesn’t have her own car and the bank is too far away to walk. "And he’s not a weirdo."

"Kid sent you psalms as love notes, sis. He’s a total weirdo," Scott says, helping himself to another glass of Sunny-D from the gallon jug left out on the counter. "I think he’s probably just gay and used you as a cover story."

"I wish," Kate says, sighing as she turns to grab her purse and head out the door. "He won’t stop trying to get back together."

"Just tell him  _you’re_  gay,” Scott says.

"Prescott Eli Fuller," their father glares from the table.

"And that’s my cue to leave," Kate says as Scott’s eyes bug and he turns to face what will be an inevitable scolding— she ducks out the door just as their dad starts up on being humble and all of his other What Would Jesus Do? bullshit.

Kyle pulls up to the curb in front of the Fuller house five minutes later, hops out to get Kate’s door for her. She suppresses the urge to tell him to stop doing that, that chivalry is dead and she’s capable of getting her own door, thanks. Instead she just smiles at him tiredly and hops in the cab, Kyle coming around to get back in the driver’s side and start heading towards the bank.

"You look nice," he says when they’re half-way there, his eyes straight ahead on the road.

"Scott thinks I look like an anchor woman," Kate laughs. "I guess that’s what I get for going shopping without Haley’s help."

Kyle smiles, talks with her about their mutual friends from school and what they’re up to this summer since they don’t need jobs. Kate’s a little jealous at first, wishes she could lounge all day by the public pool and stare at Trey Sanchez, the hot lifeguard there, like the rest of her friends. But then she reminds herself of how important this job is, of how she wants to get out of this good for nothing town and go to school in the city, reinvent herself and start fresh.

She thanks Kyle when he drops her off in front of the bank, ignores his little kiss on the cheek as a goodbye and gives him a tight-lipped grin, heading into the bank right after punching in the code to the security alarm that verifies her as employee and not intruder.

It’s thirty minutes before the open shift, but everyone had to be here early today to make sure everything went okay with a big exchange they had last night. Millions of dollars in old oil bonds have been delivered here to Bethel Banking, so everyone is buzzing about the news. Kate heads over to the front desk where Monica is chatting with Danica, bouncing happily on the balls of her feet because Monica’s her favorite co-worker, always sweet and kind and talking animatedly about her children. It makes Kate miss her mother sometimes, but more than that she’s happy Monica’s kids have such a good mom who cares about them so much.

“ _Hola_ , Katie,” Monica says at Kate’s approach. “You look very nice.”

"Thank you," Kate blushes. "I take it everything went well with the transfer last night?"

"Sure did," Danica beams. "Monica and Mr. Riley are the only ones who know the combo though, and they won’t let us see the bonds. Such a shame— never been near that much money in my life and it’d be cool to touch."

Danica’s not as kind as Monica— she likes to gossip and hold grudges. Her smile isn’t soft either, but full of secrets. It’s the same way with the other tellers, Charlotte and Bill. Mr. Riley is nice to Kate since he’s her father’s friend, but something about the man gives her the creeps. Besides Monica, Kate only really likes the security guard, Abelardo, who gives her Mexican candies every night before she goes home because he says she needs to get a little more cultured with a warm, teasing smile.

"Yes, well, we must make sure we keep them safe until their owner gets here to claim them," Monica says in a mothering tone, ignores the way Danica rolls her eyes and turns her full attention on Kate instead. "Katie, there’s coffee in the break room. I got a latte  _dolche_  just for you.”

"Oh, you didn’t have to," Kate says, her chest tightening at the small gestures of love Monica’s always making for others. "Thank you."

"Isn’t a problem, sweetie," Monica says, wrapping an arm around Kate’s shoulders and giving her a small hug."I know it’s your favorite. Go ahead and drink it before Mr. Riley starts droning about the oil bonds."

Kate smiles, sadness at the corners of her mouth. Every Saturday before her momma got sick, she and Kate would go get coffee at the local cafe in the town square and talk about Kate’s schooling and friends and how her relationship with Kyle was going. It was like their secret place to not be the preacher’s wife and daughter for a while, but just be two women who could share everything and laugh about how good it felt to do that. Her momma always got a cafe americano, and Kate never failed to order a caramel latte, same as the kind Monica’s brought in for her.

Humming happily to herself, Kate wonders back into the break room to grab up the cup and slurp on it happily, hoping that since it’s a Monday they won’t have too many customers. Long lines are always the worst because people get impatient, and Kate dreads Wednesdays when everyone and their dog come in to look and see whether or not their Social Security check transferred through alright, even though they always do.

Kate’s in the middle of finishing her coffee and preparing herself for Mr. Riley’s inevitable speech about making sure the bonds transfer stays hush-hush when she hears the doors bang open up front and Danica scream.

"Listen up! Everyone just be cool and do what I say, and I promise you’ll make it out of this without any bumps or scrapes, got it?" calls a strong, male voice.

Something in Kate’s stomach twists at the man’s words, the way she hears the minute cock of a gun and then the splitting of bone. Danica screams again, and the gut-wrenching terror of the sound is followed up by a revolver going off.

"Oh, God," Kate whispers, rooted to the spot where she’s leaning back against the table. "Oh, please, God,  _no_.”

She gave up on praying after her momma died, but now Kate recites every psalm she can think of as the same man from just a moment ago asks, “Who here knows the combination to the safe?”

There’s some arguing, more broken bones, and then Kate can hear Monica saying, “Okay, okay,” as a new male voice tells everyone to put their cellphones in a bag.

When she started working here last week, Kate figured it’s the type of bank that no one would ever even think of robbing. Bethel hasn’t even had a case of vandalism in the past seventeen years, let alone a full-out armed robbery. Kate figured she’d be safe, Mr. Riley assuring Abelardo could handle anything bad thrown at them. But deep down Kate knows that that isn’t true, and that when footsteps start making their way towards the break room, she’s totally screwed.

Fear has kept her stock still until this moment, but now she bolts away from the table and grabs the nearest blunt object— an umbrella off the coat wrack— hiding next to the lip of the break room door. The steps coming towards her are too calm for anyone being held hostage by bank robbers, too light to be Bill or Mr. Riley or Abelardo. Kate holds her breath as a tall frame passes through the arch the separates the main hall from the break room, and swings.

The man goes down flat on his back, grunting in pain when he lands. There’s blood slipping out of his nose when Kate looks down at him, pretty blue eyes looking up at her through Coke bottle thick glasses.

"You’re bleeding," the man says when he focuses in on her face.

"No," Kate says, shell-shocked and beyond terrified. "That’s you."

The man laughs, holds up a gun from his waist and pulls back the safety on it. “Wanna bet on it?” he asks.

Kate drops the umbrella in her hands and holds them up in the air, cursing herself for not having just kept hitting him after he fell. Getting distracted by the sharp bow of his mouth and the freckles on his pale skin is not a reasonable excuse, she tells herself as she backs up against the wall while the man begins to stand.  _Stupid stupid stupid girl,_  she adds for good measure.

The man keeps his gun trained on her, letting his gaze drag down along the lines of her body. Kate feels naked, all of a sudden. She feels like this man can see every, single piece of her inside and out. And when his eyes finally meet hers again, there’s something dark there, something seductive— a secret Kate is dying to know, is dying to  _feel_.

"What’s your name?" he asks.

"Kate," she answers, lips trembling around the short, soft syllable.

"I’m Richie," he says, wiping the blood out from under his nose that Kate caused by hitting him with the umbrella; it crusts red flakes on his top lip. "Please give me your cell-phone."

Kate snorts at the way he’s asking politely, like she has any choice when he has a gun trained on her. She reaches into the pocket of her blazer and pulls out her phone, hands it over to him. He takes it gingerly, his fingers running along the back of hers and it  _hurts_ , this electric pulse zapping through the mutual touch like something right out of a bad movie. Kate looks up at him and he stares steadily back at her, gaze unwavering and strong.

After a moment Kate can’t do it anymore, can’t take the intensity of this man, this  _crook_ , and looks away.

"Is that horchata?" Richie asks not a minute later.

"What?" Kate asks, but Richie’s already trapesing over to the table and picking up a cup, sipping at it happily.

"Well I’ll be damned," he says, smiling. It’s the smile of a little boy getting his favorite treat, and for a moment Kate forgets he has a gun and is trying to rob the bank.

But then he turns on her again, waves his gun like it’s an extension of his arm and says, “To the front room, please.”

"Stop saying  _please_ ,” Kate counters, watches the way his expression shifts from one of passiveness to surprise. “Stop pretending like I have a choice.”

"You do have a choice," Richie says. "But if you make the wrong one, I’ll shoot you."

"Aren’t you a gentleman," Kate snaps, something about the fear and adrenaline in her system making her bold, making her dangerous.

Richie smirks, bends down in a dramatic bow. “After you, Lady Kate.”

Resisting the urge to flip him off, Kate starts walking into the front room, cringes when he follows up behind her and shoves the muzzle of his gun into her back. Richie’s body is so close she can feel the heat of him, the strong lines of muscle and bone along her spine, how his hands aren’t shaking and hers are.

When they make it to the front room Kate sees Monica opening the safe, a man behind her wearing a suit that looks like Richie’s. Kate guesses that’s the one that was yelling orders originally, then.

The man turns when he hears Kate and Richie enter, sharp brow and bowed mouth like Richie’s as he scowls over at his partner and the girl he’s holding onto. “What the hell is _that_?” Seth asks.

"It’s horchata," Richie laughs, and Kate hadn’t even realized he’s still holding the cup he found in the break room until he brings it up at her side, contents sloshing. "I found it in the kitchen, man."

"I’m talking about the little girl you’re groping, Richard," the other man scoffs.

Kate glances over her shoulder to see Richie rolling his eyes. “This is Kate. I found her in the kitchen, too.”

Swallowing dryly, Kate looks over at the other man, his dark expression the same kind of terrifying as Richie’s. She breaks her gaze away from him, too, stumbles it down to Monica who’s staring at her helplessly as she cracks the safe open. The other man turns to look at it then, reaches down and grabs what must be the bonds out of it just as sirens begin to wail on the horizon.

"Who called the fucking cops?" the man shouts.

Everyone looks at each other and stumbles.

"It’s an automatic alarm," Kate says, trying to save anyone else from getting hurt. She’s noticed Mr. Riley passed out in the chair, his face bloody; Abelardo passed out on the floor, his face bloody, too. She doesn’t want anyone else to end up like that. "It goes off if you enter the building before open without a code."

"How didn’t you notice that, Seth?" Richie asks.

The other man—  _Seth_ , scowls. “I’m sorry, Richard. I was too busy trying to keep your crazy-ass in line.”

Kate looks back in time to see a muscle in Richie’s jaw twitch, the muzzle of his gun digging deeper into her back until she winces in pain. “Don’t call me that,” Richie says.

Seth rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he says, shoving the bonds into a plain black duffle on one of the employee desks. “We’re gonna need a hostage, now.” He turns back to Monica and gestures at her with his pistol.

"No!" Kate screams before she can stop herself, everyone who isn’t passed out turning to look at her. "No," she says, more small this time. She thinks of Monica’s kids waiting at home for her, and she knows she means it when she says, "Take me instead."

"No," Seth answers at the same time Richie says, "Okay."

 

 

It happens in a whirlwind after that.

One minute Kate’s standing there with a gun to her back and the next Monica’s screaming her name as Seth and Richie pull Kate out the back doors of the bank, don’t have enough time to argue about her offering herself up for sacrifice.

Richie’s arm goes around Kate’s chest, holding tight as they angle her to the back lot, squad cars pulling up right on cue as if they’re on the set of a bad cops and robbers film. Shots are fired, but the cops are trying not to hit Kate and Richie and Seth are trying to hit them. One cop car gets blow up when Seth puts a shotgun round into its engine— two officers get shot by Richie right after.

Kate’s too busy trying not to scream at the blood and the sound as she gets shoved into the trunk of some shiny, black car and the hood slams shut. Then the front doors slam shut. And then they’re speeding away.

She gasps for breath in the dark space, car jerking as it takes a turn too hard. Her eyes can’t adjust to the dim lighting here, and suddenly Kate feels claustrophobic, remembers when Scott has his bratty phase as a kid and used to lock her in their toy chest and she screamed and screamed until her momma came and got her out.

She screams now, screams and screams until her throat goes dry and she can’t make a sound anymore.

After, for a while, Kate just lays there curled up, still trying not to cry because somehow she’s managed not to do that in her screaming frenzy. She knows it won’t do any good anyways, that sobbing never helped anyone in a dire situation.  _What’s dad gonna do when he finds out I let myself get taken hostage?_  she thinks. First he’ll probably freak out, and then he’ll ground her when she gets home.

 _If_  she gets home.

Because, really, who’s to say Richie and Seth aren’t just going to kill her when this is all done? Kate has no idea where they’re going, what they wanted the bonds for. She’s seen their faces, can hear them arguing about something called  _El Rey_  and someone called  _Carlos_  in the front seat. Don’t villains always kill the witnesses anyways? Especially tiny teenage girl witnesses like Kate who they’d have no trouble overpowering if they wanted to?

 _I’m gonna go to heaven with Momma,_  Kate thinks for one numb, blissful moment, and then suddenly she realizes she doesn’t want to die, not when she hasn’t even actually  _lived_. She’s only seventeen, isn’t even out of high school yet. She can’t just accept this, can’t just play the victim and go quietly.

She has to be strong; she has to _fight_  like Moses or David or Mary— maybe all three.

 _Think, Kate,_  she tells herself, remembers all those articles online for what to do if you’re ever kidnapped. She’s sad that the world is cruel to women and those kinds of things have to be public knowledge for more than just explaining how people get away in movies, but at the same time she’s thankful she remembers to kick out the tail-light and stick her fingers through to try and signal for help.

It doesn’t work though, might have even written her death-warrant because suddenly the car is giving a violent halt and she hears scuffling after the two front doors open. Kate retracts her fingers back into the car, holds her breath as suddenly the trunk opens and her eyes adjust to the bright light so she can look up at Richie standing there, zip-tie in one hand and a rag in the other.

Instinct kicks in and suddenly Kate’s scrabbling up and thrusting her foot out, landing the heel of it right into the space between Richie’s throat and chest. He sputters, falls over as the breath rushes out of him and Kate wastes no time before jumping out of the trunk and starting to run.

She doesn’t make it far before Seth tackles her, presses his body into hers and pushes her face into the dirt. Kate screams again and flails backwards, throwing out her arms and sinking her nails into the side of Seth’s face.

"Jesus!" he curses, tries to stifle a hand around her mouth but she bites that, has him swearing all over the place.

"She’s a scrapper," Richie says from off to the side now that he’s recovered from Kate’s attack on him, helps Seth by pinning Kate’s arms down.

"Get off!" Kate screams. "Someone _help_! Help me!”

"Ain’t gonna do no good, princess," Seth breathes out heavily, winded from all her struggling beneath him. "We’re in the middle of nowhere with no one."

Kate twists her head back and spits at him, gets him right in the eye and has him yelling out a loud, “ _FUCK_!” as he reels away and Richie takes over, zip-tying Kate’s arms behind her back before she can stop him.

"You piece of shit!" Kate shouts, the first time she’s swore at someone in her life. "I hate you! I hate you! I  _hate you_!”

Richie shifts behind her, almost like she’s  _wounded_  him with her words.

"Oh, come on, Richard," Seth says, still holding a hand up to his eyeball, letting his fingers trail over the claw-tracks on his cheek and grimacing when he comes back with blood on the hand Kate didn’t bite, because the one she did has blood on it, too, and gouge marks from her teeth. "Don’t tell me you’re attached."

"It’s not like that," Richie says. "She just doesn’t deserve to be treated like an animal, is all."

Seth scoffs, turns away and shakes his head as Richie moves to kneel in front of Kate. He’s holding the rag out she noticed earlier, his hands steady as he lifts up her chin. Kate tries to muster up every ounce of venom and hate and fear she can into her expression, stares him down as he presses the rag into her mouth and ties it around the back of her head like a make-shift gag.

"I’m sorry," he whispers, brushing her hair out of her face almost tenderly after she’s been muzzled like a freaking dog. Kate rips away from his touch, watches with satisfaction as Richie’s expression falls, his eyes sad. "Why’d you volunteer if you didn’t want to?"

Kate murmurs her answer through the gag, waits for him to pull it down before she says, “No one _wants_  to get kidnapped. But I wasn’t letting Monica go. She has a family— kids.”

"Don’t you have a family?" Richie asks, and the way he’s looking at her, that way from when he first saw her like he can see into her soul, it makes Kate tell the truth.

"A broken one," she answers.

Richie smiles at her with something that looks like empathy, like he knows the feeling. He pulls the gag back up and lets his hand linger near her mouth, index finger brushing her top lip. Kate resists the urge to vomit, not from the cotton in her mouth, but from his touch, from the way she  _likes_  it.

"Are you done bonding now?" Seth asks, comes over and kneels down next to Richie in front of Kate. "Look, princess, I didn’t want to do this anymore than my brother, but your scream carries, and we can’t have that for when we do get around people."

Kate blinks as she registers the word  _brother_ , looks between the two men before her and can instantly see it. They’re both too pretty for their own good, strong jawline, dark hair, sharp bowed mouths. She’d peg them as half-brothers more than anything, Seth’s skin and eyes darker than Richie’s, his body broader and shorter where Richie’s is leaner and taller. Then again, that could just be dominant verses recessive genes, and by the way the two men move so in-sync when they pick Kate up and gently place her back in the trunk, they’re definitely full blooded siblings.

"Are you thirsty?" Richie asks as Seth climbs back into the front. Kate shakes her head, doesn’t want anything from him though her throat still does hurt from screaming earlier and the gag in her mouth is rapidly drying out her tongue. "Okay, well," Richie says, scratching the back of his neck nervously, "if you do get thirsty, tap the hood of the trunk twice."

 _With what?_  Kate wants to ask since her arms are pinned behind her back, but instead she just rolls away from him and tries not to cry again when he slams the trunk shut.

 

 

They drive for a while before the car stops once more.

Kate’s kind of fallen asleep by now, wakes up when she rolls into the tailgate and blinks, forgets where she is for a second before a crick in her shoulders starts throbbing from where her arms have been pinned back too long, drool all over her chin from it seeping into the rag yet her mouth is dry as dust and her throat raw. She identifies the dark surroundings of the trunk, the bruise in her spine from the muzzle of Richie’s gun digging into the skin there.

A sob escapes her before she can help it, but she shakes her head, staves it off and listens as the brothers get out, arguing until she can’t hear them anymore.  
For a while she thinks that maybe they’re gone, ditched her and the car somewhere in the middle of the desert.  
Then she hears gunshots, someone shouting they’re a ranger and to let a man named Earl go, and more gun shots before it’s silent again.

Some time later, there’s one final bullet and then the car doors slam shut up front and the car speeds off. Kate holds her breath as they drive and drive and drive until coming to a violent halt.

"You stupid little shit!" Seth yells as two doors slam open. "What was that back there?! Richard!"

They’re gone again for a while, and then they’re back. Kate’s entire body hurts and she wants to simply not exist anymore when they open the trunk and look in at her. Richie’s covered in blood and Seth’s lip is red and swollen, the marks on his cheek Kate’s nails left angry and irritated. They’re both just sort of staring at her like they don’t know what to do.

"Here’s the deal," Seth finally says, and Kate glances up at him tiredly. "We’re going to cut you loose, but you have to promise not to scream."

And because she hurts so much, Kate nods.

Seth nods too, makes Richie help him get Kate out of the trunk and onto her feet. At first her knees threaten to buckle, but Seth holds her up and against his body, warmth sinking into the hurt that’s settled into Kate’s bone. There’s the sound of a pocket-knife flicking open and then her arms come loose, but for a moment it hurts too bad to move them and so Richie takes the gag out of her mouth for her.

Kate coughs, doesn’t refuse the water bottle he holds up to her mouth and drinks greedily. Seth starts rubbing her shoulders, and at first she tenses, but then it feels so good that she relaxes back into him, starts to move her arms a nit and gulps down more water before finally Richie wipes the escaping drops off the crease under her lower lip. The whole exchange is very intimate in its own way, but Kate’s too numb at this point to care, even when Seth puts his arm around her waist and curls one large palm into her hip to help her into the back seat.

She lays down just because her back still hurts too much to sit up, stares in between the front seats as Richie and Seth climb in before Seth turns the car over and they’re driving again.

"Where are we going?" Kate finally asks about a mile down the highway.

"Mexico," Richie says.

"What’s in Mexico?" Kate asks.

"Mexicans," Richie smirks.

"You’re an idiot," Seth says to his brother, flicking Richie’s ear. "We’re going to Mexico, princess, because we’ve just done our final job and we’ve got a deal waiting down there for us that means paradise."

"Oh," Kate says. "Will I get to go home?"

"After we get into Mexico," Richie answers.

Something in Kate’s stomach drops. “I don’t have a passport,” she whispers feebly.

"Neither do we," Seth answers. "But we’ve got it all set up at the border. Until then, we’re all exhausted, and have some time to kill. How about we stop and get something to eat, get a motel room and a bed?"

"You both keep acting like I have a choice," Kate says, almost angrily.

The brothers don’t reply to that, just stare ahead at the road.

 

 

The Dew Drop Inn is a motel that Kate could picture herself at on some twisted family vacation.

Seth gets them a single suite, leaves her there alone with Richie as he goes out to get them all something to eat.

"Don’t forget the sweet potato fries!" Richie calls from where he’s sitting on the edge of the king sized bed, just a doorway separating him and Kate where she’s finally able to sit on the couch in the make-shift living room.

"Whatever," Seth says, and slams the door shut.

For a while Kate and Richie stay in their respective corners— she hears him switch the television on and listens to the dim sounds of cartoons while looking out the window. There’s a pool here, and she wants more than anything to submerge herself in it, let the water wash her clean.

She vaguely wonders if she’s going to develop Post Traumatic from all of this, because the only other option is Stockholm’s and she’s certainly not going that route. She wonders if she can get away from Richie, run outside and scream for help because someone would have to hear her now.

But then she remembers Seth very openly giving Richie a gun  _just in case_ , and Kate doesn’t want to risk anyone else getting hurt.

Eventually, after the silence must be too much for him, Richie slides over into the doorway, looks at her, and pats the space on the bed next to his body. Kate knows that just like every other aspect of this trip, she doesn’t have a choice.

Limbs shaking, she stands and goes to sit by him, staring ahead at the television where Wile E. Coyote is chasing the Road Runner, screws up his own plan and falls off a cliff, the bird he’s forever chasing running away with a  _meep-meep_. Again Kate thinks of that happy smile on Richie’s face when he found the horchota in the break room, the horchata he dropped when he started shooting at the cops.

 _He’s still a little boy,_  she realizes quite suddenly.  _Both of them are. They’re both scared. Like me._

Kate glances up at Richie then, at the way he’s staring at her and only her.

"I wasn’t kidding about you bleeding, back there at the bank," he says. "It’s like you’re hurting inside and it’s just leaking out everywhere."

"How would you know?" Kate asks.

"Sometimes I see things," he answers. "I’d like to think I see the truth."

She’d call him crazy, but it’s obvious he doesn’t like that word. So instead she just looks at him, at the blood on his shirt from a wound he’s got in his hand wrapped up in duck-tape. She wonders when he got that, if it’s from the second time they stopped and she heard gunshots.

"Have you cleaned it yet?" she asks, gesturing to his hand.

"No," Richie says, brows pulling together.

"Let’s do that," Kate answers, because she needs  _something_  to do so she doesn’t have to keep sitting next to him, the heat of his body pressed into hers.

They find mini bottles of vodka in the small kitchenette’s fridge, bring them into the bathroom and take the duck-tape off of Richie’s hand gingerly. Kate gapes as she realizes there’s a complete  _hole_  in his hand, that she can see straight through it to the tiles of the bathroom floor.

"Got shot," Richie says in explanation.

Kate nods, is okay with the blood and gore once it’s no longer being inflicted and has settled. She was thinking of going to college to become a nurse, to help sick people like her momma. But now she wonders if she’ll go to college at all after this, if the brothers will really let her go once they get to Mexico.

"This is gonna hurt," she says, uncaps the bottles and holds Richie’s hand over the sink before pouring the alcohol over the wound.

Richie hisses, grinds his teeth.

When it’s done Kate leaves for a second to go get a towel from the bedroom closet since the used all the ones in the bathroom to wipe away the blood before cleaning the wound. She stumbles over her own feet when she walks back into the bathroom to see Richie looking at his hand with both terror and amazement.

"Richie?" she asks. "… _Richie_?”

He blinks up at her, looks like he’s coming out of some kind of trance, almost. “You’re different,” he says.

"What?" Kate asks, takes a step back as he takes one forwards.

"You’re different," he repeats. "You’re  _good_. She doesn’t tell me to set you free. She tells me to bring you with.”

Kate doesn’t answer him, swallows down her fear and confusion and steps forwards to wrap the towel around his hand and tie it off, looking up at him when it’s all over. He’s staring at her the same way he was staring at his hand, like she’s terrifying and amazing at the same time and it makes everything in Kate’s body buzz, her insides going hot as she turns away like a coward and goes to sit on the bed again.

Richie joins her after pacing for a few minutes, finally kneels down between her legs and has Kate sputtering as he puts his head on them and wraps his arms around her waist. She closes her eyes, thinking  _God help me_  as she reaches out and strokes his hair, because there’s nothing else for her to do.

After a few moments Richie nuzzles his face in between her thighs, riding her skirt up until Kate can feel his cheeks against her skin, his breath ghosting up her legs and making her twitch in sensation.

"Richie," she says softly, making him look up at her. "Richie, please let me go?"

"I don’t want you to go," he says, leans up and untangles his hands from around her waist only to put them on either side of her face. "I want you to stay."

"Am I interrupting something?"

Both Kate and Richie turn to see Seth standing in the doorway then, bag of food in his hands. Traitorously, Kate’s cheeks flame while Richie just keeps touching her, glowering over at his brother.

"I didn’t leave for not even two hours so you two could play goddamn Lolita," Seth snaps, comes over and pries Richie off of Kate with force. "Keep your hands to yourself, Richard."

"Shut up," Richie snarls. "You don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Don’t I?" Seth asks. For a moment the brothers just glare at each other, and then Seth sighs and shakes his head. "I found our way out."

"And what’s that?" Richie asks.

"Carlito called— there’s a man waiting to pass us through at the border. And there’s a truck just sitting in the lot we can take," Seth says. "So let’s get ramblin’."

 

 

Seth has Richie go to the truck first and give them cover.  
When he’s gone it’s like a weight has lifted from Kate’s body, because even though the brothers are equally as dangerous, Richie’s insanity terrifies her as much as it entices her.

"Did my brother…do anything to you?" Seth asks after he’s done looking out the blinds to make sure Richie’s made it.

"He scared me," Kate says.

Seth nods, his expression sad before he shakes his head and says, “Listen, princess, you just do what I tell you, okay? Do what I say and I promise you’ll make it out of this without any bumps or scrapes.”

Kate looks at him, really looks at this criminal in front of her and realizes that, God, this is really happening. That she woke up, ate her breakfast, went to work, got kidnapped by two crazy, gun wielding brothers, and is now going to be smuggled over the Mexican border like some kind of illegal contraband.

And she laughs— she laughs and laughs until suddenly she’s just crying, and Seth’s just standing there like he doesn’t know what to do.

"I should’ve just gone to the pool with my friends," Kate sobs, pressing her face into her hands. "Oh _God_ , I’m going to die.”

"Hey, hey," Seth says then, leans down into her and brushes the tears off her face. His touch is softer than his brother’s, more caring, more needy, in a way. "You’re not going to die, Kate. I promise. I know that’s not much coming from a common theif, but that’s all I am, okay? Maybe I left some bodies back there, but I did it because I had to. I don’t kill anyone that doesn’t deserve it, and you _don’t_  deserve it.”

"No one  _deserves_  to die,” Kate answers.

Seth smiles at her, the smile of a boy who’s had everything he’s ever wanted ripped away from him. “You’re a good girl, aren’t you?” he asks.

"My daddy was a preacher," Kate answers.

"Of course he was," Seth says, eyes trailing from hers down to her mouth, then back up. "The trope fits."

Kate doesn’t understand what he means, but then he’s backing away and opening the door, gun at his side as they step outside, until suddenly he looks back and grabs her, and shots start getting fired. A voice Kate recognizes from when they stopped that second time is yelling, the one who said he was a Texas Ranger.

"Stop, Gecko!" the man calls, and Kate sees a flash of bright eyes and brown skin before Seth’s shooting and pulling her back into the room, pressing her up against the wall.

Richie kicks in the door from the other room not a minute later, smirking over at the both of them after Seth’s lowered his gun. “Having fun yet, brother?” Richie asks.

"Shut up," Seth answers.

 

 

They make it out of the Dew Drop Inn and over the border in less time than Kate can count.

The sun’s starting to set by now, lowering over the heavy Mexican horizon as Seth drives and Kate sits between him and Richie in the cab of the truck. Customs at the border didn’t even take a second glance at them, didn’t ask for passports or names, just let them drive right on through.

Kate glances over at Richie, at where his hand is curled up on her knee. She can feel Seth’s right arm resting over her shoulders while he uses his left to drive, both brothers so close to her she can’t even breathe.

Something about their touch makes Kate’s body feel electric, makes her mind whisper sinful, terrifying things.

When they stop for the final time it’s outside of a strip bar, of all places.

Kate glances up at the Titty Twister and holds her breath, watches Seth punch a guy out for calling her Cherry Pie. It makes her want to smile, rethink what she was going to say to Kyle about chivalry being dead, but then they get inside the bar and she realizes, yeah, okay, chivalry’s definitely been dead and buried for a long time.

It smells like sex in here. Like sweat and booze and body butter. Kate adverts her eyes from half-naked women dancing, from the leers of old bikers and seedy men.

Seth gets them a table in the middle of the place and hands her a shot while Richie goes to wonder around, talks about family and actors and asks Kate to forgive him.

"I forgive you," she says, just because she knows she doesn’t have another choice.

When she stumbles in on Richie in a back room and begs him to let her go, she doesn’t know why she kisses him. He says he wants her to stay, to feel what he’s feeling, to belong, but Kate knows she can’t belong in a place like this. So instead she asks him to set her free and he asks her why she said that and she doesn’t know and they’re kissing, soft and meaningful, until she pulls away wondering what the hell just happened, and Seth comes storming in saying something about preacher’s daughter strikes again.

Kate sits there with her cheeks burning, registers the jealousy and want on Seth’s face and thinks oh before suddenly he’s sitting down next to her, looping his arm over her shoulders and she’s absolutely terrified and heavy headed with some kind of foreign feeling that burns her up as he leans in.

Before Seth can kiss her though, some guy wearing too much leather but somehow not enough clothes is telling them they have to come out front, take a seat because the show’s beginning.

And what a show it is.

 

 

Why Kate goes with Richie and Seth at the end of the night when everyone else is dead or undead, she doesn’t know.

Maybe it’s because this place has changed her, put blood on her hands like the brothers have had on their own since they were young. Kate knows she can’t go home, not now with everything she’s seen and experienced. She can’t go back to the bank Seth and Richie stole her from and work forty hours a week, pretend like everything’s fine. She can’t bring back the violence of last night to her dad and Scott, but she can throw it right in with the violence Richie and Seth keep close to them like a lover.

 _Oh fuck,_  she thinks.  _I went Stockholm after all._

And the brothers are just standing there in front of her when she looks, covered in blood like she is (so much for her new anchor woman outfit; she thinks Scott would laugh at the irony of it all). Seth and Richie are painted gold by the rising Mexican sun coming up from behind a fucking  _vampire_  strip bar, of all places. They look like two heroes in a cheesy horror movie, and she remembers how they saved her back in that temple, how  _she_  saved  _them_ even though she didn’t have to and probably shouldn’t have bothered.

"Come with us," Richie says, and Kate realizes they never did plan to let her go, not really.

And maybe that’s how it was supposed to be from the start.

Kate rolls her eyes and stifles a laugh. “Stop acting like I have a choice,” she says, and the brothers smile.

 

 

 


	8. I taste the good and bad in you and want them both.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seth/Kate post hunt adrenaline sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt of Seth/Kate high off post hunting adrenaline sex from anonymous.

 

 

([original on tumblr](http://hasitsclaws.tumblr.com/post/93211241786/i-taste-the-good-and-bad-in-you-and-want-them-both))

* * *

 

 

 

Kate's head is cotton-candy sticky and red-hot sweet with adrenaline and arousal.

She doesn't understand how this happened all so very quick, how one moment she and Seth were cutting culebras into pieces, blood all over, and then the next they were just kissing and suddenly Seth's got her pressed against the door of their motel room, his hips circling into hers insistently as he gropes around in his pocket for the room keys, muttering curses into Kate's mouth when he can't find them.

"Here," Kate says, bats his hand away and quickly produces said keys out of his pocket with a triumphant smirk.

"Show ass," Seth says, and the laugh Kate gives him in return is cut off by his mouth on hers again, the way Seth takes the keys from her and fits them into the lock next to her hip, shoving the door open within the next minute.

They tumble into the room together, Seth having enough sense to kick the door shut as he presses his hands sharply into Kate's hips before tugging her bloody, gore-spattered t-shirt up, up, up over her head. Kate's body is so hot she doesn't have time to be embarrassed that she doesn't have a bra on underneath and is completely bare from the waist up now, need flaring in the pit of her stomach as she untucks Seth's own shirt from his jeans, desperate to feel his skin on hers.

"Eager," Seth mutters.

"Shut up," Kate answers, kissing him; Seth smiles around her mouth.

They have been together for four months shy of two years now. They have screamed together, laughed together, cried together, bled together too. That night at the Twister broke them, left them in tangled, mauled hunks. When Seth had accepted Kate's offer for company she had been amazed, wondering why she'd ever even asked to go with him in the first place.

Because, in the beginning, they hated each other. After a few days of aimless driving and blank motel rooms to sleep in, Kate realized what she'd done. That she'd killed her dad, left her brother behind and run off into the sunset with the man who had kidnapped her like they were on the set of a bad movie. She wanted to leave him; wanted Seth to leave _her_.

But neither of them ever had the courage to do it.

Instead they danced around each other like they were trying not to step on landmines. They drove and drove and drove, and Seth talked and talked and talked while Kate didn't. He taught her how to hustle pool, was okay with the fact that she looked away when he hit up a gas station for spare cash. She taught him how to be honest with himself about how much pain he's in, was okay with the fact that he looked away whenever she said Richie's name.

After the first two months they got used to each other. Kate's okay with the fact Seth snores, and Seth thinks it's cute that Kate likes to make sound effects when doing mundane tasks. They've told each other about their childhoods and hopes and dreams because there was nothing left to do but drink and talk.

They've helped each other  _heal_ , because while they may not be good or bad or even anything in-between, they're what each other has and they fit together well; they know how to make things better for each other despite what tragedy has planned.

And then six months in to being together some culebras walked into a bar and Seth told Kate it was time to take back what the world had stolen from them. And it's always been so easy, killing the monsters that took it all. Seth admitted that he figured after Richie, he'd never be able to be partners with someone again. Until Kate, until they realized they go together better than rum and Coke or bruises and blood.

Kate doesn't remember the exact day their relationship turned into more than a need for company, for feeling like someone had their back. She figures it was almost a year ago on her eighteenth birthday, when she asked for a tattoo instead of a cake. There's a small cross on her right side now, Scott and her dad's birth dates sketched in beneath the religious icon.

"It's like a fucking love letter to the dead," Seth said when Kate showed him the finished product, looking at his own tattoo in mourning.

"No," Kate said, reaching up to touch his face softly. "It's so I don't forget who they were, before."

And after that all the lines they'd laid between each other sort of blurred. Before it was all brother and sister almost, and then...then it was something else entirely.

Seth kissed her for the first time after a hunt in Monterrey, after they'd heard Richie and Santanico's names nearly a year after parting ways with the disastrous pair. Something about sacrifice, something about Seth needed to step up and be a hero, Kate needing to die to make everything the way it should be.

"I won't ever let them hurt you," Seth said after all the culebras were dead, and when he kissed her, it felt like coming home.

The first time they fucked was three months later, because Kate wanted to. They'd shared a few more kisses, a few soft touches in the dark. And finally Kate realized that this is it, Seth's Gecko's all she's got and she kind of, begrudgingly, loves him. And he loves her too-- he can't say as much, but words that count aren't their thing.

So they slept together, and at first it was clumsy and needy and full of longing and hurt. But they've gotten down a routine since then. That first time was months ago, and now they've come together in a way Kate didn't think was possible. Because they're not ignorant enough to think this is a happy ending, that it's just them at the end of the world. There's still Richie and Santanico to deal with. Kate still has to find Scott. Seth has to face his destiny.

They both have to admit to Ranger Gonzalez that Seth's been doing a little more than keeping an eye on Kate and wait for the inevitable storm of that one.

But for now they've got this, they've got each other and that's enough.

Especially after hunts. After they've shed blood and taken everything back, the adrenaline and laughter at the face of death in their systems flowing over and dripping through their pores.

And they've never fucked straight after before tonight, but this time a culebra came a little to close to killing Kate for Seth's liking, and after he'd chopped the culebra's head off he'd just grabbed Kate and kissed her.

They were just a few miles up the road at some stale night club, let the civilians go and raced back to their room where Kate is now ripping open Seth's shirt impatiently, buttons flying everywhere. She fastens her mouth on his neck, the sensitive spot above his collar bone and Seth hisses, muscles of his stomach jumping under Kate's palms.

"F _uck_ , baby girl," Seth says, the nickname making Kate's spine bow when he presses his hands there to keep her in place as he bites at the curve of her jaw, marking her up with his teeth.

If there's one thing Kate's learned since they started fucking, it's that Seth likes giving her hickies-- he's jealous as hell at almost all hours of the day if she pays attention to anyone but him, so he likes the proof she's always going to come back. It's a bit childish, but the slope of his mouth and flick of his tongue always has Kate forgetting that the bruises on her skin are going to be a bitch to try and cover up when they head out in the morning for the next town.

After a moment Seth moves onto her shoulder, biting into the skin, his teeth catching against the ridge of a scratch one of the culebras gave Kate during the hunt. She yelps, shoves Seth away  _hard_ , making him land on the edge of the bed.

"Sorry," Seth smirks, her blood making his mouth ruddy red.

Kate rolls her eyes, finally lets it settle in that she's standing there in just her bloody shorts and socks and shoes. Despite the fact that she and Seth have been together like this for months, Kate's still a little self-conscious, acutely aware of every stretch-mark and roll puberty has left in its place, how she's so very vulnerable under Seth's gaze. Not to mention the fact she's still got it ingrained in her brain that everything she's done since meeting the Gecko brothers has been a sin, religion weighing heavy on her mind.

Because,  _God_ , if her daddy could see her now he'd roll over in his non-existent grave, bones rattling against the Twister's stone floors.

"Hey, hey," Seth says when Kate raises up her arms to cover herself, reaches out and threads his fingers through the belt-loops of her shorts, pulling her in close. "None of that now, baby girl. You don't gotta be shy 'round me-- you know that."

He looks up at her with sincerity and warmth, making Kate's tummy flip-flop with emotions she won't let herself explain. Sighing, she places her hands gently on Seth's shoulders, adrenaline dulling down in her body to a pleasant hum, skin alive wherever Seth touches.

"Easy princess," he says reassuringly, runs his hands down her sides and leaves Kate shivering, insides pooling with need.

Seth nuzzles his face into her chest then, lips ghosting over the inside edge of one breast and then the other. Kate makes a noise somewhere between a moan and whimper, presses a hand softly to the back of his head to hold him in place a he drags his tongue through her cleavage, leaving her skin wet and sensitive. His palms come up to cup her breasts, calluses grazing her nipples as he squeezes lightly; her mouth parts in a silent 'O' and her fingers go to his hair, pulling at the short strands.

"Good, baby girl?" Seth asks.

Kate bites her lip and nods, to which he answers with a chuckle. It makes the flush on her cheeks grow, thinking that he's laughing at her for being such a wrigling mess and he's barely even touched her yet. She goes to take her hands out of his hair and possibly even back away, but he grabs them with his own and holds her there, looking up through his impossibly long lashes to smile at her.

"Don't be sheepish, now," he says, licks his lips devilishly. "I'm just glad to see you're enjoying yourself so much."

Kate can't help but grin back at that, settle him with a mock glare. "You're making fun of me."

"Am not," Seth argues, suddenly grips her tight under her arms and pulls her down into his lap. Her legs fall open on either side of his thighs, breath hitching in her throat as he thrusts up into her, pressing his very obvious erection into the space between her legs, thick and heavy against her skin. "Completely serious here, baby girl. The sounds you make are... _Christ_ , they're fucking  _hot_. You drive me  _crazy_ , you know."

Kate's grin turns into a full-out laugh, her mouth finding his sloppily. They kiss nice and easy, lasting just moments before Seth's running his mouth back down the column of her throat, down her chest, no teasing this time as he reaches the peak of her right breast and blatantly takes a nipple into his mouth, sucks on it hard and makes Kate yelp, jostling in his lap.

"Mmm, that's it," Seth murmurs. "Just relax, Kate."

"Easy for you to say," she replies, but her breath's rushing out of her lungs and makes her voice too soft to hold any threat.

Seth chuckles again, adjusts so they're sitting fully on the bed. "Up," he says, making Kate rise onto her knees as he undoes the button on her shorts; she has enough sense to kick her shoes and socks off before Seth manages to maneuver her shorts and underwear down her legs, tossing them over the side of the bed and leaving Kate completely naked save the cross around her neck.

For a minute Seth just looks at her, making some of the adrenaline in Kate's system rush back into place. She forcefully tugs his shirt the rest of the way off, kissing him hard as they fall back against the bed. Seth groans when Kate touches him boldly through his jeans, stroking her hand softly over the swell of him.

"Fuck," Seth says breathlessly, hands digging into the bottom of Kate's ass as he tries to push her up. "Wanna taste you," he says when Kate's slow to move. "C'mere."

Biting her lip, Kate does as told and rises until she's practically sitting on Seth's face, letting out a small moan as he wastes not time making good on his orders, mouth licking up between her thighs long and slow.   
She lets out a squeal when he presses a finger into her a few minutes later, sucking at her clit to make the sensation more intense. It doesn't take long before Kate's basically riding his mouth, helpless little sounds and curses falling out of her throat as Seth holds her hips steady, groaning into her.

Kate makes him stop before she comes, wants to wait until he's inside of her for that and shakes her head when he tries to bring her back after she's pulled away. "I wasn't finished yet," Seth whines mockingly.

"You act like I'm desert," Kate laughs.

"You are. Sweet cherry pie," Seth shoots back at her.

Kate leans in and digs her fingers into a cut a culebra left on his side in retaliation. Seth grunts and jerks up, Kate's digits dragging out of the wound and over his stomach, leaving sloppy red trails. She marvels at the sight of it against his dark skin for a moment before Seth's kissing her violently, taste of her on his tongue.

Stomach coiling, Kate moves quickly to undo his belt buckle, shoves his pants down enough that when he flips them over and presses her back down into the mattress he's able to kick the garment off the rest of the way. Kate keens when he bites at her shoulder again, licking away the sting as he reaches down between them and aligns himself with her, pushing up and inside of her with one quick stroke.

" _Fuck_ ," Kate says, clutching at Seth's shoulders.

Seth groans in reply, hips snapping into hers sharply. Kate's toes curl, skin burning as he grabs at her, tips of his hands leaving new bruises over the old ones.

Mouthing at his neck, Kate waits for the right moment to get her legs around his waist and flip them, grinding down onto him at just the right angle once they're settled.

"Sh _it_ ," Seth says, pawing at her breasts roughly as she rides him. "You're gonna be the death of me, baby girl."

"Here's hoping," Kate smiles dangerously, arching her back hard on the next rut of her hips and making Seth moan, sound slipping up and out so easily she's smirking, all her insecurities forgotten when she's got him so vulnerable like this, a big, bad man on his back for her because they trust and need each other, nothing more or less.

After a few more minutes Seth stills her with his hands on her hips, sits up beneath her and spreads his knees out behind them before starting up again. Kate clutches at his shoulders, crying out because this angle allows him to get deeper inside of her, base of his cock rubbing against the most sensitive parts of her and making everything feel tingly and flushed.

"That's it, baby girl," Seth says as Kate moves against him a little more desperately, can feel the edge of her orgasm starting to peak. "Just like that--  _yeah_ , come on, Kate. Fuck."

He thrusts up into her harder, and in retaliation she digs her nails into his back, scoring dark crescents against his skin, spilling a little more blood because the night apparently hasn't taken enough of that from them yet.

"Come on," Seth coos again. "Come on, Kate. Come for me."

"I-- almost-- close," she pants, buries her face into his neck and yelps when she feels Seth's hands sliding down her back, over her hips until he's got one between them, rubbing at Kate's clit in thick circles timed to his thrusts. "Oh  _God_ ," Kate cries out, just that little bit of pressure enough to make her crash over the edge.

"That's it-- that's it," Seth groans, bites sharply at her neck and that just makes the orgasm sharper, Kate's entire body reeling with sensation. Seth helps her ride it out, keeps thrusting into her while she's coming down until suddenly she feels even warmer and wetter between her thighs. "Shit--fuck. _Kate_ ," Seth gasps, and Kate watches in awe as he comes, kisses him desperately after it's all over.

And for a while they just stay there, intertwined and breathing harshly into each other's skin. Eventually though Kate's back starts to crick and she whines for Seth to lay down. He brings her with him, slipping out of her messily but Kate just giggles, feels sated and warm like she's coming down from a good high. She lets her fingers slide down between her legs, dragging them through her folds and shivering at left-over aftershocks from her orgasm, stingy-sweet.

"Hmm," Seth mumbles when he sees what she's doing, grabs her wrist and brings her hand up to his mouth, licking her fingers obscenely.

Kate swallows, looks at him and bites her lip. "Round two?" she asks.

"Sweetheart," Seth laughs. "You're going to need to give me a minute."

"Spoil sport," Kate pouts.

"Hey, you kill ten culebras then try and fuck the daylights out of your insatiable girlfriend then come talking," Seth says, realizes what he's just said when Kate stiffens next to him.

"Girlfriend, huh?" she asks, because they've never really put labels on anything before this.

For what Kate thinks may be the first time she's seen him do it, Seth smiles shyly in answer. "Yeah," he says. "Though I think that word doesn't cover the depth of what you mean to me, Kate."

"What  _do_  I mean to you?" Kate asks teasingly, chances a peak upwards and sees Seth grinning towards the ceiling.

"Home," he says.

Kate hides a grin of her own, tracing soft patterns into his chest. "Well if fucking you after letting you kill some culebras was all it took to get you to say that, I should've done it sooner," Kate says.

Seth laughs, leans over her to kiss the tattoo on her ribs, making her heart stutter at the meaning behind the gesture. "Yeah, sure, whatever princess. Don't go getting stake-happy because of it."

"I think it's too late for that," Kate smirks as he rights himself, brushes sweaty hair from his forehead.

"Yeah," Seth says. "You're probably right."

Kate just keeps smirking, head cotton-candy sticky and red-hot sweet with love and sleep.

 

 

 

 


End file.
